Gauntlet: Pain
by Cap'n Chryssalid
Summary: (Complete) Desperate times call for desperate measures, as a long expected and unassailable foe threatens Townsville, and both Rowdyruff and Powerpuff rise to the challenge. The End of the World continues! (Sequel to Gauntlet: Lies)
1. Default Chapter

**Author's Notes:**

First, I would like to thank those who have read and posted reviews for Gauntlet: Crucible and Gauntlet: Lies! 'CnC makes my day!' I hope you continue to enjoy the story as it continues...

And now, the third installment in the 'Gauntlet' series (yes, they are gradually diminishing in size) ... But first, a rehash of characters - The Powerpuff Girls are largely the same... Blossom has her confidence back, but it is tempered by the fact that she still allows Brick to take overall command. Buttercup's insecurity is waning, but being replaced by a sort of need for vindication (from her own enemies, oddly), and her impulsiveness is also tempered by the experiences of the past. Bubbles is the most stable and untraumatized of the group (except for the nightmares she had for a time and still think about). She also feels a sort of obligation (and pity) towards the Rowdyruffs, and especially Boomer, who she 'killed.'

Other characters, notably the Professor, Mojo and Miss Bellum, will be further elaborated on as the story continues.

The three big ones that need to be put down are the Rowdyruffs themselves. So, to put things together, I wrote up three character descriptions for them containing a good deal of information, but no real spoilers (95 of it is stuff you could pick up and know from reading the last two parts of the story).

**-The Character Analysis-**

Name  
**Brick**

Persona  
Brick is the leader of the Rowdyruff boys, and the mastermind behind the majority of current events. He is a cold and heartless individual, who cares only for himself and his brothers, and feels no direct moral imperative towards others who do not benefit him in some way. He carries deep psychological scars from his death and 'rebirth' (Revelation), and with them a heavy sense of responsibility. He is manipulative, and when not in control of a situation, his anger begins to break the surface. Brick intrinsically dislikes others, as well as the secrets he feels obliged to keep bottled up.

Strengths  
Brick is highly intelligent and keenly aware of his surroundings. His foresight and ruthlessness are both a great strength and flaw. Physically, Brick is not especially strong, fast, or powerful, but he possesses an excellent sense of timing and execution on and off the battlefield.

Flaws  
Brick's confidence borders on supreme arrogance, at times, and his ruthlessness can easily alienate others. His sense of responsibility and obligation also translates to a habitual inability to tell the total truth, and to keep information that would weaken his position and himself from even his closest associates - his own brothers. Mentally, Brick's lack of empathy and inability to truly love or trust another person, coupled with his perfectionism and avoidance (fear) of emotional bonding can be interpreted as both a growing psychosis and a symptom of an abusive and neglected childhood.

Ability  
Brick is an absolutely deadly fighter. He tends to avoid being struck, luring and leading his opponent and reading their moves, before striking quickly and decisively. His passive style is the perfect counter to aggressive attacks, and coupled with his patience and experience, it makes him a unique and dangerous opponent able to hold his own against those far more powerful than himself. Of all the Rowdyruff Boys, Brick is the only one willing to follow through an attack with an actual act of murder, should he deem it appropriate. Brick's 'special ability' is the ability to project and control an intense swath of flame in a column, or around his body, as a shield.

Relationship  
Brick's relationship towards the Powerpuff Girls is complicated. He both loves and hates them, for conflicting reasons. More importantly, in his mind, they are an integral part of his plans for the future. Through this reasoning, he is willing to work with them, or more accurately, have them work for him. Towards Blossom, he sees both competition, and the potential for a co-conspirator with which he can finally divulge his secrets. This clashes sharply with his ability to trust, his need to keep secrets, and his contempt towards others.

Name  
**Butch**

Persona  
Butch is the muscle in the Rowdyruff Boys, and he is also the most 'normal' of them. Butch is a fighter, first and foremost, and he is proud of that station. Unlike his brothers, who are both innately deceitful (Brick lies to others, Boomer lies to himself), Butch is in touch with who he is, and honest with himself and others. He sees planning and cunning as a substitute for honest strength, and the Test of One against Another.

Strengths  
Butch is strong. 'Butch is the strongest there is.' The brunette Rowdyruff is an avid lover of boxing, kickboxing, and other brutal pugilistic arts, and he constantly hones his body to be as powerful as possible. He is also quite intelligent, but not in the mindset of a schemer or planner - rather, he has more 'street smarts.' Butch's raw power serves him well, and he can easily work himself up into an anger-induced fury. Butch has the potential to be a leader, but not the patience or perseverance. He is akin to a 'good soldier,' more than willing to follow Brick's orders to the letter, even if they trouble him, or even if he doesn't know the reasoning behind them.

Flaws  
Butch is honest with himself, but that doesn't mean he likes what he sees in the mirror. While the most brutal and vicious of the Rowdyruffs, at heart, Butch is also a loner and a dreamer, who looks for another way to walk, separate from Brick's guidance. This leads to an obsession with his physical appearance and hygiene, as well as a craving for passion and intensity in situations and feelings. Naturally, Butch likes his food hot, and his showers hotter: the better to burn away the acts and actions of the day. His pride often keeps him quiet, but when he talks, Butch often does so with a dirty mouth, a counterpoint to his always-neat appearance.

Ability  
Butch is incredibly strong, and very skilled, though not particularly fast. He is the slowest fighter on the RRB team, but compensates when he gets up close and personal with his opponent. A master of the grapple, once he gets his hands on an opponent, it is child's play (literally) to snap that target in two. Butch is also fond of throwing very heavy things "hella far." Unlike his brothers, Butch does not play with his opponent, and he does not believe in holding back. Butch will always fight at full strength, and with the objective of ending a fight as quickly and efficiently as possible - he does not really derive joy from battle, only a sense of release and professionalism. He does not kill, however. Butch's 'special ability' is a form of body hardening that magnifies his ability to take and resist energy (kinetic or otherwise).

Relationship  
Butch doesn't particularly 'like' any of the Powerpuff Girls. To him, Bubbles is too oblivious and naive, Blossom is too demanding and overbearing, and Buttercup is too much of a tomboy. Of them, he prefers the company of Buttercup, with whom he can talk and relate.

Name  
**Boomer**

Persona  
Boomer appears to be a happy-go-lucky character. Quick with a smile, and not particularly mean spirited, he seems to be the perfect Rowdyruff counterpart to Powerpuff Bubbles. A deeper look, however, shows inconsistencies. Boomer is always quick with a joke, but the joke is always mocking and hurtful, aimed to anger and inflame. He seems to be the most likely of the Boys to get along with others, and yet he prefers to spend time alone. Of all the Boys, Boomer was most deeply traumatized by his death, and unlike Brick, never experienced a Revelation as to what happened to them. Boomer's kindness and outgoing personality are constantly at war with the darkness that lurks just under his skin. It is a conflict that even he is not completely aware of, but manifests itself in a sort of self-loathing that few get any hint of.

Strengths  
Boomer's greatest strength is his generality. He is not as strong or skilled as Brick or Butch, but he is notably faster, and possessed of a keen wit. His taunts and speed serve to infuriate his opponents, leaving them open for his attacks. Boomer prefers to fight at range than up close and personal, whereas Butch greatly prefers fighting up close, and Brick has no real problem with either. Of normal intelligence, Boomer can easily lead an opponent to underestimate him, which, of course, was the idea in the first place. Boomer is also highly observant and sensitive to the moods and actions of those around him, though he normally pretends not to care.

Flaws  
Boomer's greatest flaw, besides his lack of social graces and big mouth, is his fear. Boomer constantly tries to keep together his immediate family (Brick, Butch, Mojo, and himself), and deeply desires something approaching a more normal life. Despite Brick's words, he silently feels unloved and unwanted, and sometimes falls into deep bouts of depression when alone. In battle, his stress atavism can lead him to snap under dire circumstances when his greatest fear - death - becomes untenable.

Ability  
Boomer is a master of the dodge and weave, but at heart, he isn't a fighter. He is not a specialist in any particular feature of combat besides speed, and doesn't really revel in the causing of violence, though he enjoys outsmarting and outmaneuvering his opponents. Secretly, he plays the piano and sings very well - he is the only Rowdyruff boy who is musically inclined. This is doubly odd, because he has no fingers...

Relationship  
Boomer is deeply envious of the Powerpuff Girls, and the family they were created into. He also harbors a measure of resentment towards them for his death, but always fights not to think of things that happened in the past. Of the three Boys, he is closest to the Girls, sometimes watching them in school, but never really participating in any of the games. He derives some measure of satisfaction by vicariously living through them, and their lives, and is inwardly very bitter that he has to keep a certain distance from them and their happiness. In Bubbles, he finds both friend and confidant. While he enjoys teasing both Blossom and Buttercup, he feels more comfortable around the former than the latter.

Now, to the fic!

* * *

Like a good communist, I own nothing.

* * *

"Gauntlet: Pain"  
Part 1

* * *

June 2

The Doctor was a harsh looking man, his head and face scoured of any trace of hair. The Laboratory was typically immaculate, and white suited assistants and colleagues roamed its open expanse quietly, going about their business. The catwalk suspended over the labs gave Burnsday and his associates a superb view of everything below them.

"The information we procured from the Jackal was of tremendous aid, as you will soon see." The Doctor gave the little tour group that he was leading a wiry grin. "Our technology has progressed one, perhaps two, full generations."

"It better have been." A shrill voice from the youngest of the group made the Doctor wince. "It cost enough."

"I... want to see some return for this investment." A deep base rumble echoed the other voice's concerns. "I am not running a charity."

"With the fusion we've brought together, how can there not be a fruitful return?"

Burnsday lolled his head to the side of the railing. Down below, he was watching a rather attractive woman in a lab coat toting some sort of weapon. Which of the two got his attention was unclear.

"Mr. Morebucks. Miss Morebucks. This way."

The Doctor left out the mercenary in their midst, but Burnsday was hardly offended enough to make light of it. The Doctor led them down a flight of steps, to a large open area: a weapons testing range, currently silent. Handing from one side, a certain something caught and kept Burnsday's eye.

"Ah. You've repaired it!" He said, and walked up to the separate sections of body armor. They weren't exactly in the same shape that they had been when he'd first gotten them from Professor Utonium, and the fact that they'd undergone a fair degree of modification was obvious.

"We've improved on it." The Doctor corrected him, with a somewhat contemptuous sneer. "After the damage it took, we had to almost reconstruct it from scratch. This provided us with an opportunity to better study the design and components. The resulting melding of our technology with Utonium's and that recently acquired is far more efficient, versatile and durable than the... modified model we had built previously. As per our agreement, no expense has been spared, however, there has been a minor setback..."

"What?" Mr. Morebucks asked. "Given the money spent..."

"Money, unfortunately, cannot solve every problem." The Doctor's sharp eye cut off the indignant younger Morebucks' child, who seemed about to contradict him. "Especially a technical problem."

"Which is?" Burnsday pressed, growing somewhat concerned.

"We... could not replicate Chemical X." The Doctor admitted, and adjusted his shirt nervously. "The Synthetics we also attempted to engineer from the sample given to us were not stable in any way. Chemical X is... rather unique. Rather unusual. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it."

"How can that be?" Princess Morebucks finally spoke up. "That monkey could make it, and he's... he's poor!"

"Mojo Jojo... also has it coursing through his veins. He is a sample of the Chemical, in a way." The Doctor closed his eyes and frowned. "He also has a point of reference and far more experience with the Chemical. Regardless, the problem has not been solved - our supply of Chemical X is incredibly low."

"I need that Chemical to be effective, Doctor." Burnsday realized he was starting to breathe heavily, another sign of the withdrawal he was suffering from. He'd been bailed out of jail quickly enough, but the lack of Chemical X was starting to make him nervous and impatient. His skin was scratchy, and his fingernails had turned black. He'd seen medical doctors about what was happening to him, but they couldn't pin down the problem.

It was X.

He needed it. His body was screaming for it.

Just a drop, directly into the bloodstream - that was all he needed. Then he'd feel the power rush through his veins. The world would be like slow motion; the universe would feel almost malleable. It felt like a slice of godhood, and simply losing that was beyond horrible. Princess Morebucks had been exposed to the Chemical as well, but not in the same manner, and her partial symptoms were trivial: headaches, mostly. Burnsday shook his head, cleared his mind, and shook a fist at the Doctor.

"Without that Chemical, even with this suit... it won't be enough!" He growled.

"That is a situation to be remedied later." The Doctor seemed anxious to get off the Chemical X topic. "I know that you... all of you will be pleased by the advancements we've made, especially in the field of ballistics."

"Bullets?" Princess scoffed. "Bullets won't hurt the Powerpuff Girls ...or those stupid boys!"

The Doctor just smiled.

* * *

June 5

"You look very nice, Professor!"

"Why thank you, Blossom." The man in question fixed his tie. He was running a tad late. "You wouldn't happen to have my..."

"Hat?" Blossom reached behind her, and handed it to him.

"Thanks. Now, you three listen to your babysitter while I'm gone." He talked while heading for the door. Buttercup and Bubbles were already there, holding it open for him. "I don't want to hear any horror stories when I get back, ok Buttercup? The Mayor should be here in a few minutes."

"Ok, Bye!" The three girls intoned, waving, as he drove off.

Closing the door, Buttercup continued to look out warily.

"I wish we could follow. Find out who he's seeing," She grumbled, arms crossed.

"Just some colleagues." Blossom shrugged.

"A collie?" Bubbles asked.

"Colleague. People he works with." Blossom explained enthusiastically. "College friends and stuff."

Buttercup rolled her eyes. "We all know how well it went the last time one of his college buddies dropped in."

Before Blossom could say anything to the effect of that mess being as much their fault than anyone's, the doorbell rang at the same time someone started knocking. As she answered the door, Blossom quickly realized that the Mayor had weaseled his way out of babysitting them again. He always knocked - he just couldn't reach the doorbell. Opening the door with some measure of trepidation, her eyes widened when she saw who had dropped by.

"You again!" Blossom started.

"Mojo!" Bubbles continued.

"Jojo!" Buttercup finished.

"Yes. Once again it is I, Mojo Jojo - your babysitter." Mojo didn't seem as excited about the circumstances as he had last time.

"You've got a lot of b... a lot of guts trying this stunt again!" Buttercup barely caught herself and made a mental note that she'd been spending too much time with a certain three shady characters.

Mojo struck a pose, one hand forward, fingers splayed. "I didn't come alone! I am not doing this solo, because this time I brought reinforcements, I brought assistance, I brought..."

"The Rowdyruff Boys!" Brick, Boomer and Butch said, as one, and zipped out from out of view. They took three different poses next to Mojo. Brick was holding the bill of his cap and looking down with one hand out. Butch has changed out of his normal arms-crossed pose to a sort of 'in your face' rapesque pose. Boomer had ruffled up his hair, stuck his tongue out, and made himself out to look like someone caught in one too many mosh pits.

A moment of silence passed.

Blossom sighed. "Are you clowns going to stand there like that or come in?"

"We'll come in." Brick stood up straight as he said it. Boomer quickly started straightening out his hair and Butch went back to crossing his arms. Mojo just pushed past the girls and made himself at home on the couch.

"So this is the Utonium place?" Butch looked in, crossed the threshold, and nodded to himself. "Not a bad pad. TV could be bigger, though. Smells weird, too."

"Not everyone can afford an 84 inch television, you know. Especially when they PAY for it!" Buttercup had seen the Rowdyruff's TV. It was stolen, of course, in the sense that the Rowdyruff Boys had walked into a store and asked for it, and fearing for their lives and property, the people had handed it over.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever Green eyes." Butch sat down on the couch next to Mojo. "So, what're you girls cookin' us for dinner? I could sure go for some Cajun style catfish!"

"Steak." Brick licked his lips. "Medium rare. Ohh... with a side of golden potatoes!"

"I'll have the..." Boomer rocked back and forth on his feet, thinking it over. "Do you have any pheasant or kangaroo dishes?"

"We're not cooking anything!!" Blossom raged. "If anything, Mojo or one of you should be cooking for us!"

"You three do not appreciate fine gourmet cuisine." Mojo flipped through the channels. "Your tastes are neither capable nor worthy of the delicate and exquisite flavors evoked by the cooking of Mojo Jojo! Immature..."

"I think they get the point, pops." Brick cut Mojo off. "We'll just order a pizza then. That more to your liking, Bloss?"

"Whatever." Blossom 'hmfed' and looked away.

"Sounds good." Boomer chuckled. "I'll have a 'triple meat threat.'"

"That's what I'm talking about!" Buttercup echoed.

"Eww." Bubbles didn't much enjoy the 'piles of meat' that Boomer and Buttercup liked.

"Hot peppers on mine. And I'll have some buffalo wings. Lots of wings." Butch nudged Mojo. "You gonna have Banana and anchovies again, pops?"

"Ugh!" Everyone groaned.

Mojo just snorted and ignored them. In a flash, Brick was out the door, crossing the city and suburbs in a blur of red light. In just under three minutes, he came back with twin armfuls of piping hot pizza. And wings. He was tempted to get the food locally, but the city simply had better food overall. By 'the city,' of course, he meant New York City.

"Dude!" Boomer greeted him. "What took so long?"

"My good brother, I had to fight off three different superheroes to get this food. I was shot at, blasted by some weird cosmic rays, and some big green thing tried to smash me into paste." Brick put the boxes down on the kitchen table. "Do NOT complain about it being late."

"Gotcha." Boomer started opening the boxes.

"FOOD!!" Butch yelled, and in a green blur he swept up the box of buffalo wings and a pizza pie. It quickly turned into a messy melee, as every one of them lunged for their food and threw their siblings aside in the search. Mojo's, in particular, got manhandled before he calmly walked by, picked it up, and went back to the couch.

He ate slowly while the orgy of violence and devouring of foodstuffs took place behind him. He wasn't particularly happy about being hooked with babysitting the terrible trio of Powerpuffs again. He wouldn't have done it at all, normally, but Brick had quickly decided that it was a golden opportunity to get into the Professor's Lab. Mojo didn't enjoy taking orders from his young former protégé, but for the moment it was necessary. Brick's words from almost a month ago had proven true under empirical study, and so he would play along. At the end, however, only one of them would walk out on top, and Mojo had been growing confident that that one could be him. Brick had outmaneuvered and outsmarted him once before, but as Mojo observed the boy more closely he started to see flaws that could be exploited in the future.

He wasn't out of the game just yet.

"Hell YES! That's some good ass hot wings! Eee... yah! You got any damn soy milk in this joint?"

"Butch! Watch your mouth!"

"What the hell are..."

"There is no cursing in this house!"

"Just yelling at the top of your lungs, right Red?"

"Shut up, Boomer!"

"Sassy! Me-ow, girlfriend! Don't claw my eyes out or nothin! OW! Hey, what's the idea?!"

"Stop being so mean!"

"Dude, Bubbles just smacked you. You're like a little bi..."

"I said no cursing!!"

"SHUT UP ALL OF YOU!!" Mojo roared, teeth gnashing and eyes flaring wide. All of them, except Brick, seemed totally surprised by the outburst. Mojo slowly deflated, calming down, and he caught Brick's eye motioning towards the Lab. Neither of them had forgotten why they'd come.

"Just... go upstairs and play. Something." Mojo hissed under his breath, and went back to watching his WW1 documentary on The History Channel. The death and destruction always helped soothe his nerves. Human tragedy in general always gave him a warm glowing feeling deep inside. And the banana and anchovy pizza was just wunderbar.

"Good idea pops." Brick agreed, and rallied the group. "Let's go."

Blossom was the only one to hesitate. She trusted Mojo about as far as she could throw Manhattan, and only a little less than Brick himself, but he seemed placated, and the mad monkey hadn't caused an incident in Townsville in almost a month. For that matter, there hadn't been a monster attack in that same timeframe. It had been, oddly, very quiet. She figured a lot of construction crews had likely been laid off in the little lull that the city was having.

"All right." She differed to Brick. As they floated upstairs, with what little food was left, Bubbles suddenly started laughing.

"Mwhat?" Buttercup asked her, mouth still full.

"Let's play 'Truth or Dare!'" She laughed. Brick frowned at the title, and Blossom noticed it.

"What a good idea!" Blossom seconded Bubbles' proposal. Inwardly, Brick was smiling as well. The game would provide an opportunity for gathering more information then revealing it. Of course, out of everyone, he had the most to hide, but he was also the best at hiding it.

"I dunno..." Buttercup grumbled.

"...It sounds kinda like a sissy game." Butch continued, also grumbling.

"We could always play the spin the bottle instead!" Boomer laughed. Brick and Butch quickly turned on him, glowering.

"Don't even think about it!" Butch growled.

"I'd rather not." Brick said, eyes narrow.

The three Rowdyruffs entered the Girls' room warily. Of them, only Boomer had seen it before. The blonde Rowdyruff had started spending more time with them, Brick knew, no doubt seeing them as a sort of surrogate family. It wasn't something that Brick had planned, but he'd let it continue without any dramatic confrontation. Boomer's loyalty to him, and to the Rowdyruffs, was absolute. Any attachment he felt for the Powerpuffs could be just as easily turned to resentment, if the need required.

"Ok! I'll start!" Bubbles looked across the rough circle they'd formed, and her eyes fell on Boomer. "Boomer, I choose you!"

"Pika?" Boomer piped up.

Butch groaned. "Was that really necessary?"

"I've got nothing to hide." Boomer smiled widely. "Truth."

"What... is your favorite color?"

Buttercup sighed loudly. "That is SO lame..."

"Hmm." Boomer cupped his chin. He was obviously deep in thought, and legs crossed, he slowly started to float into the air, looking much like a Zen master, deep in meditation.

"I think..." He said, after almost twenty seconds. "A metallic shade of Cobalt Blue, followed closely by hmm... Midnight Azure."

"So the answer is 'blue.'" Brick clarified.

"Yes. Essentially." Boomer got a wicked grin, and pointed to Buttercup. "Truth or Dare, B-Cup?"

"Truth." Buttercup answered, defiantly. "And don't call me that!"

"When was the last time you took a bath?" Boomer wafted his hand in front of his nose. Buttercup's scowl deepened.

"Well?" Boomer asked, chuckling.

"A... A week ago."

"DUDE!" "HOLY!" Its true." "Eww! What about yesterday?"

"I just left the water on..." Buttercup shook her head, defeated. "And dipped my towel in the sink."

"That's sick, man. Just sick." Butch inched away from her.

"Oh yeah?" Buttercup pointed at him. "When was the last time YOU took a bath?!"

"I've never taken a bath. But I took a shower before I came here." Butch answered, plainly. "I take a shower every morning to wake up, and every night before I go to sleep. My hair requires three different conditioners to stay healthy, so every other morning I alternate..."

"What conditioners do you use?" Blossom asked, actually interested. "It does have a very healthy glow."

"Oh, well, thank you." Butch smiled, pleasantly. It was an odd sight; especially given that normally he only smiled in a vicious and cruel manner seconds before pummeling someone. "To start with, I use a medium strength moisturizer to improve the body of the hair, then I focus on follicle nutrition, and..."

"Can we get back to the game, by any chance?" Brick made a big show of walking up to a snoozing Boomer and kicking him awake, before getting back to his spot next to Blossom.

"OH. Ok." Butch's smile slowly dissolved into a neutral frown, and he looked around. "Blossom! Truth or Dare?"

"This better not be a question about her hair." Boomer warned.

"Dare!" The Powerpuff Leader answered, boldly.

"Hmm. Ok. Dare... um... er... well... I can't really think of anything." Butch admitted, and frowned more deeply. Arms crossed, he waited for everyone to laugh at him.

"Dude." Brick leaned over. "It's not too tough. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you imagine her doing something?"

"Er..." Butch looked at Blossom intently. "Take off your..."

Buttercup quickly cut him off with a right hook. He fell backwards, holding his face. "What the bloody hell was that for?!"

"That's for being such a... sicko!" Buttercup snarled.

"I was going to say 'take off your bow,'" Butch explained, and slowly got back into a seated position. He got into Buttercup's face. "BUT some crazy LUNATIC decided to punch first and ask questions later!!"

"Ok, ok." Blossom reached up, and unclipped her red bow. She put it down in front of her with a flourish.

"OH my god!" Boomer gasped. "Red? Red, where are you?! She just... disappeared! It's a miracle... an ACT of GOD! I believe! I believe!! Tell it on the mountain!!"

"Ha. Ha." Blossom rolled her eyes. As was, perhaps, inevitable, she turned to Brick. "All right, you: Truth or Dare."

Brick smirked. "Truth or Dare... I think... Truth."

"You have to tell the truth now. Ok?" Blossom said, making sure he knew.

"Of course, of course. The truth, and just the truth."

"How come our kisses didn't defeat you guys?"

"You mean the second time around?" Brick leaned back a bit, a faint blush to his cheeks. Blossom looked around and saw that Boomer and Butch were blushing too, and trying to hide it.

"Yes," She pressed for the information. "Why didn't it work?"

"Well..." Brick began. "If you really want to know..."


	2. Gauntlet: Pain part 2

Like a good communist, I own nothing.

* * *

"Gauntlet: Pain"  
Part 2

* * *

More than two months ago, in a seedy part of Citysville...

"Hey, you kids can't come in here... urk!"

"And who, exactly, is going to stop us?" Brick chuckled, softly, and let go of the burly man's neck.

"What's that?" Brick pretended to hear. "You're going to let us in? That's very nice of you, Mr. Bouncer. And to show my appreciation, I won't break your arms OR your legs! Aren't I a regular saint and a half?"

The man coughed, and fell back against the wall, clutching his throat. Fear in his eyes, he motioned them in. Brick led his brothers inside the building of flashing neon. Almost casually, he sat down near center stage, at this point dragging Boomer (who had closed his eyes) and Butch (who had done likewise) with him.

"Open your eyes, you two idiots!" Brick smacked each one upside the head. "This is your lesson on the birds and bees!"

Slowly, they opened their eyes and looked.

* * *

Boomer quickly wiped a bit of blood from his nose.

Butch was just drooling, his eyes lolled into the back of his skull.

Brick was still smirking.

"Well?" Blossom asked, again. "Why didn't our kisses work the second time around?"

"When you've seen a mountain, the hill is not so impressive," Brick finally answered. Blossom obviously wasn't happy with his answer, so he became more to the point.

"I took them to a strip club." Brick admitted. "The 'Foxy Tail,' if I remember correctly. Or was it the 'Neon Kitten?' Come to think of it, it may have been the 'House of Bounce'..."

"W... we saw..." Boomer stuttered, for once.

"And! And!!" Butch seemed to have a similar problem. He started waving his arms around erratically.

"Yes! And!!" Boomer jumped up and started forming weird shapes in the air in front of him. Buttercup looked at them and couldn't help but laugh. Bubbles, however, didn't quite get it. She said as much.

"I don't get it."

Blossom let out a loud disgusted 'hmf' and looked away, at the door. She'd never seen Brick blush before. He looked... he looked very different. The red Rowdyruff, a bit nervous that Blossom would look through the walls to check on Mojo (who, by this time according to their timetable, should be in the Professor's Lab), quickly drew her attention.

"Bloss!" He called to her. "Truth or Dare?"

She blinked at him, as if surprised that he'd picked her.

"Truth this time," She said.

"Riiight." Brick paused, formulating his question. "If kissing suddenly worked on us again, if that weakness still existed, and you could kill us again, would you?"

"I did try to ...kill you again, or have you forgotten?"

"I mean here. Now."

"If..." Blossom started to answer, but found that she wasn't telling the truth. She mentally wrestled with the problem.

"Yes or no?"

"It would... depend..."

"Yes. Or No?"

Blossom picked up her red bow, and stared at it intently. Her indecision wasn't something Brick expected. He had 'trained' her to be more passive than before, in respect to him anyway. That she was even thinking of still turning against him spoke volumes for her willpower. To face an enemy that knows you, that can outthink and outfight you, to have come to terms with such a defeat and still harbor some desire for freedom and resistance. It was as impressive as it was foolish to reveal.

Or, perhaps, he was reading too deeply into things.

It was just as probable that she was just composing conflicting thoughts.

"No." She finally admitted. "I've seen... in your eyes... even in Boomer's eyes, sometimes, memories of what happened after you died. You hide it Brick, most of the time, but... you get so angry when you remember. You keep it inside, aim it at yourself, and blame yourself. Anything that did that to you would destroy me, so no... I don't think I could live with myself doing that to someone else. Anyone else."

Brick had tried not to listen. Blossom had been far too close to the truth, too close to him. He had directed her to believe things down certain controllable paths, and yet she had seen through smokescreens. She knew far more than he wanted her to know. So he closed his eyes, shut off his mind, and tried to ignore her words.

Blossom smiled inwardly at the small victory.

"Boomer." She addressed the blond boy. "Truth or Dare?"

Boomer thought for a second and answered. "Dare me, baby, one more time."

"I dare you..." She started to laugh - a laugh worthy of a true demonic fiend. "I dare you to kiss one of your brothers!"

"What!?" Boomer fell backwards. "No Way!"

"That's SICK!" Butch yelled, backing off.

"I must protest..." Brick began.

"What? There's nothing wrong with a little brotherly expression of affection, is there?" Blossom stood up, and walked towards the stunned blue wearin' ruff. "It's a dare! You have to!"

"Never!" Boomer swore. "NEVER I say! It uh... it goes against my religion, yeah. I can't do the dare."

"And what religion is that?" Buttercup said between snickers.

"Um... the kind that doesn't let you kiss other dudes, naturally!" Boomer sat down, set his expression in stone. "I'll take 'Truth' instead, in light of this affair..."

"Fine." Blossom took another step towards him. "Are you happy?"

"What do you mean, 'am I happy?'"

"Are you happy? Are you content with your life?"

"Happy? I'm god damned jolly. I'm like a happy fat man on his tenth helping of wedding cake and extra buttered popcorn rippin' on some new movie. I'm a friggin' dynamo of laughter and chuckles! A raging tornado of ecstasy! An inferno of giggles and joy!" Boomer seemed about to continue, but caught himself and instantly composed himself. "Che. Yeah, Red, I'm a happy camper."

"I see." She sat down in her place next to Brick.

"Hey, Bubbles! Truth or Dare?"

"Dare!" Bubbles answered, happy to be back in the loop.

"Righty, then. I dare you to prank call someone!"

"But... that's mean!" Bubbles protested.

"At least I didn't ask you to lick one of your sisters or nothin.'" Boomer gave Blossom a wayward glance. Butch seemed to think of something, and started coughing wildly.

"Bad thoughts... evil thoughts..." Butch whispered to himself.

"One prank call," Boomer said again. "That's all I ask."

"Aa... ok." Bubbles got up, and walked over to the hotline. Uneasily, she picked it up, and dialed up the one number she remembered. After two rings, someone picked up.

"Hello?" The voice asked. "Who is this?"

"..."

"Hello? Anyone there?"

"..."

"Blossom? Buttercup? Oh no! My fairy died again!"

"..."

"Oooh!" Click - the line cut off.

"WAAHHH!!" Bubbles bawled, and ran back to Boomer. His eyes widened, and he barely got his arms over his face when she started crying and pounding on him, talking a dozen miles a second. Under the onslaught, Boomer kept trying to reassure her, or at least focus her anger and grief somewhere else (usually at Blossom or Brick). When the blue puff had tired herself out beating on the blue ruff, the game continued.

"Butch," Bubbles took a deep breath. Boomer was on the floor behind her, groaning painfully. "Truth or Dare?"

"Eh..." Butch said, lazily. "Truth, I guess."

"Butch, which one of us do you think is the cutest?"

"Of you three?" Butch looked from Blossom to Buttercup to Bubbles.

"Yes! Which one?" Bubbles giggled. Boomer was still groaning painfully.

"Keeping in mind that I don't particularly like any of you..." Butch tapped his chin. "I suppose..." He looked at Buttercup. "Well... you're too unhygienic and tomboyish, Green eyes." Then to Blossom. "And you remind me of Brick. Ugh. Scary."

"I guess that leaves you, blondie. Process of elimination is an amazing thing, isn't it?" Butch shrugged. Bubbles seemed happy enough at his decision. The fact that Blossom and Buttercup weren't too pleased by it never really entered into his mind. They glowered at him, and he remained totally oblivious.

"Have you ever heard of tact?" Blossom asked, sardonically.

"Isn't that a new kind of chewing gum?" Butch shook his head. "Anyway: Green eyes, Truth or Dare?"

"Dare." Buttercup wasn't in the mood for 'truth' anyway. "Why not?"

"Ok. I dare you to apologize for hitting me!" Butch pointed at her and barked out a laugh. "I double dare ya!"

"Apologize for hitting you?!" Buttercup raged, indignant.

"You did do it for no reason." Brick added, nodding sagely.

"Fine... Butch..." She faced him, and focused on the difficult task at hand. "A short time ago, there had been a... misunderstanding that led to violence. I was a bit hasty, and judged you wrongly."

"I still don't hear my apology..." Butch singsonged.

"As I was saying, I... regret my action and... and... apo... and apo..."

"Apollo..." Butch led her on.

"Apollo... apologize. For hitting you. When you didn't deserve it."

"Ah, it was a little sissy punch anyway!" Butch crossed his arms while she fumed. Buttercup grumbled something under her breath, and faced Brick, who had recently gained more than a little of her ire. She still fought with him regularly, and he still won, but she was lasting longer, and actually connecting with a few blows now. He never said as much, but sometimes he looked honestly impressed with her. She had gotten much better, definitely, and even if his cooperation was roundabout, it was appreciated. No, it was his attitude that mostly annoyed her now.

"Brick! Truth or Dare?"

Brick seemed confident. "Dare."

"I dare you to say something nice about someone!" Buttercup smirked inwardly at her chosen dare. Brick was loath to compliment others, and maybe, he'd compliment her. He was still rather intimidating and unapproachable, but his lack of any sort of praise in respect to her improving fighting skill was vexing. She disliked him intensely as a human being, but respected him deeply as a fighter and warrior, and even teacher.

"That's easy. I'm a great guy. I'm smart. I'm handsome. I'm..." He was smirking now, and Buttercup realized her wording had been wrong. "But I suspect you want me to say something nice about someone else, and more specifically you three girls... very well. Bubbles, you do an exceptional job of beating Boomer up when he says something stupid. Good job. Blossom. You have a driver's license at the age of six. That is pretty impressive. And, lastly, Buttercup..."

She didn't say anything; she just waited. This was it.

"You don't know when to quit."

"Gee. Thanks!" Buttercup grumbled.

"You're welcome!" Brick stood up, and quickly picked Bubbles. "All right, puff: Truth or Dare?"

"Truth!" Bubbles answered, happily.

"Where's the bathroom? I gotta drain the lizard."

Bubbles face screwed up in distaste. "At the end of the hall."

"B-eautiful." Brick inclined his head to the girls and walked out, closing the door behind him. With a quick look, he scanned the room he'd just walked out of, and confirmed that Blossom was keeping an eye on him. So: her trust of him extended only so far. Butch and Boomer were keeping the other two occupied, but Blossom wouldn't be easily turned off the trail.

Brick closed the bathroom door, and pretended to look at himself in the mirror. To his surprise, Blossom was still watching him. He was tempted to wink or give some signal that he knew she was watching him, but decided against it. Instead, he turned, flipped up the toilet seat, and did as he promised. Looking over his shoulder leisurely, he noted that Blossom had turned away.

At least she had respect for his privacy.

"Foolish." Brick cut his activity short, and in a flash headed downstairs. He'd only recently realized that the Professor's Lab was shielded: prying Powerpuff eyes couldn't penetrate it. So he had to improvise and check the old fashioned way. He was downstairs in a heartbeat, through the kitchen, and to the door of the lab. Brick opened it, walked in, and closed it behind him. The electronic lock had been picked, and Mojo was already inside, sitting down at the Professor's computer system. A rack of books in a neat row nearby also caught Brick's eye.

Brick made a hand gesture.

Mojo frowned. "You can talk. The Lab is completely sealed. Sound will not get through the walls, much like light and..."

"Good." Brick walked up behind his former mentor and father figure. "Have you established the linkup?"

"The Professor's system is well protected." Mojo's gloved hand tapped at the keyboard while the decryption program worked. "It will take more time, which is something we do not really have. Time being in short supply..."

"Just answer my questions, 'Father.'" Brick's voice was cold. "And keep it to the point."

"...Of course." Mojo's frown deepened.

"Surveillance?"

"Minimal. Just recordings for the equipment."

Brick smirked. "Even if he knows, he won't make a fuss over it. I know too much. He wouldn't dare it."

Mojo just grunted in agreement.

"Wait." Mojo switched to a new filter. "That's it! We've got linkup! We are communicating, we have an electronic connection between..."

Brick's low growl cut Mojo off.

"Good. Transfer everything you can get your hands on. We can sift through it for important things later." Brick snorted and floated up to the bookshelf. Picking up one that caught his eye, he looked through the pages. Closing it, he reread the title.

"'How I did it?'" Brick's eyes sparkled. "Oh, Father... how cliché. But... where better to hide something then in plain sight?"

* * *

"What's that sound, John?"

The Professor leaned back, and reached into his breast pocket. He took out a small electronic device, noted the reading on the small screen, and smirked. Flipping open its side, he depressed a shallow button, closed the panel, and returned it to his pocket.

"The inevitable." He finally answered.

* * *

"Something is wrong..." Mojo hunched over the keyboard, hands suddenly a blur as they worked. "Something's is very wrong! The Data flow is running both ways!"

"What?" Brick turned around, and zipped over to see the screen. On it, he could see how the flow of information, between Mojo's computers and the Professor's, was going both ways.

"We must have copied a dummy program onto our system... its reading our files!"

"Onto this system? Or another one!?"

"I... I don't know!"

"What do you mean, you don't know!?"

"We need to cut the link! We need to do it now! It cannot be delayed...!"

"Get out of here!" Brick pointed to the door. "This is a complete disaster!"

With an angry snarl, Mojo raced out of the Lab, and Brick followed. He was tempted to destroy the entire place, but in all likelihood it would do him more harm than good. The Professor had planted a trap for them, anticipating the Mayor's laziness, and Brick's own motives. The information would be transferred to another location. Luckily, Brick had kept all his and Mojo's important files stored on always-accessible CD-ROMs, so their own system wouldn't face any irreplaceable deleted files or edited information.

All he needed to do was find out where the Professor copied the information.

Unfortunately, that could be nearly anywhere.

Without a word, Mojo settled on the couch, resuming the facade of watching the TV. Brick flew upstairs, to the bathroom, and flushed. He made a good deal of noise washing his hands, and walked back into the girls' room. Boomer and Bubbles were arguing about something trivial, no doubt some new 'Dare' Boomer had given her, and Butch and Buttercup had retreated to each other's company, discussing their mutual interests in pugilism, the specific application of violence, and highly exaggerated tall tales about different fights they'd been in.

"You were gone a little long, Brick." Blossom followed him with her eyes as he entered. "I thought you had to do a Number One."

Brick laughed. "I changed my mind. Don't tell me you were looking up on me, Bloss?"

"Ew! As if!" She answered, defensively.

Brick was still chuckling amiably, but his mind was working a mile a minute. He was confident that Blossom hadn't searched the house for him, but he was intensely worried about what the Professor would learn, and confirm, from the files he'd taken. Almost as inexcusable, he had indefinitely lost the Professor's copied files and any number of non-essential ones back at Mojo's Lab.

Silently, he cursed Professor Utonium.

Yet, at the same time, he had to admire the man's patience and foresight.

At least in some respects.

What did he know of Professor Utonium? In a great many ways, he reminded Brick of himself. The Professor was a committed, driven and often obsessive man. Outwardly, he was somewhat of a goof and stiff, but inwardly there was a familiar darkness, well hidden from the world. None knew the man's dark side like Brick - Mojo may be the ruff's Father Figure, but Professor Utonium was truly their Father, especially now.

He was a practical man, proud of his home and his family.

Almost certainly, the data would be hidden in the house, on some sort of hard copy, in a place of some emotional and personal significance. It was simply a matter of deducing it, then. However, emotions and the like were not Brick's strong point. Slowly, the Rowdyruff leader smiled.

"Hey... Bloss." He gave her a sly grin. "Truth or Dare?"


	3. Gauntlet: Pain part 3

Like a good communist, I own nothing.

* * *

"Gauntlet: Pain"  
Part 3

* * *

Professor Utonium returned home with a mixture of apprehension, confusion, and outright fear. He had taken a terrible risk, trusting his girls in the company of Mojo and the Rowdyruff Boys. He had phoned the Mayor after calling Miss Bellum and organizing the date... ('The get together' he corrected himself) and making sure that the old man would defer to another source. Through Sarah, he had let the Mayor be aware that he had known of Mojo's last babysitting job, and found it more than satisfactory. It wasn't a guaranteed draw, but a calculated one.

So he had let his daughters fall in the company of fiends.

He reassured himself that they could take care of themselves, and that if the boys had wanted to cause them harm, they had ample opportunity to do so without any outside intervention. 'No,' The Professor told himself, 'Brick wants them alive.' Additionally, once that was made obvious, the question then became 'why.' The Professor had varying degrees of speculation on that, and unfortunately the worst-case scenario was also the most likely.

At that, the Professor felt a pang of guilt.

Though the boys may be devils at heart, they were still his responsibility. One of so damn many. Too many. The Professor had always tried to be careful in cleaning up after Chemical X related accidents, but several times he had been caught unaware and unprepared. For these occasions, he blamed himself. He had to. There was no one else, anymore.

Shaking his head as he drove, the Professor refocused his thoughts on the way home. Sarah's smell still lingered - her perfume, wafting and teasing his senses, tempting and distracting him. The meeting had been purely professional, but the woman's vanity had demanded that she keep her appearance at its best. The evening had been wonderful...

"Focus, Utonium," He said, out loud.

The enemy.

Focus on the enemy.

Who was the enemy? Mojo and Brick, then the other two Rowdyruffs. Over time, from information gleaned through the girls, he had determined that Boomer and Butch were almost certainly unaware of their brother's true motives and past. Mojo likely knew a portion of the truth, but not nearly all. Brick would reveal just enough to secure the evil chimp's loyalty and cooperation.

The trap.

It was a situation that neither of the Professor's quarries could afford to pass up. It was a situation for Mojo to learn what Brick had held back, and it was a golden opportunity for Brick to augment and conform his own suspicions and knowledge. It was a bold endeavor, to steal the Professor's files right under the noses of the Powerpuff Girls, but if any were to attempt it, it would be Brick and his pack of jackals.

During dinner, the Professor's snare had triggered.

Soon, he would be the one gaining information from them. Soon, he would know what they did, and more importantly, what they did not. As he drove, the Professor's mind wound back to his last 'visit' to Monster Island. The place was a total loss - the volcano had been artificially set off, and the entire landmass had been caught in its fiery swath. Coupled with the probable attack it was projected to suffer, this event would almost certainly have wiped out the monster population there, and in the nearby atolls.

It had been a mess the Professor himself wanted to see dealt with.

But that did not dampen the fact that Brick had obviously already been there. It only confirmed the worst. All together, the Rowdyruffs and Powerpuffs had eliminated Four of the anticipated Nine. It was a momentous event, in a way: a joyous event, but also of potentially devastating portent. The future could not be Brick's to mold - the boy, already dark of heart, already having seen and experienced too much, could not be trusted.

He could not be allowed to claim the prize.

That sort of burden could fall to no living man, no living human being...

Silently, he cursed the root of the problem: Chemical X. Of all his discoveries, of all the mysteries he'd participated in unraveling, perhaps that alone was one better left unknown. Parking in the driveway, he saw Mojo's hoverdisk craft parked on the side of the lawn, crushing a section of grass.

Mojo Jojo.

How odd, in retrospect. Had Mojo not been hateful and evil, twisted by his past, he would not have gone back in time and set into motion the events of his own creation, and those of the Girls. Was he fated to be the outcast? Were they all just playing out prewritten roles, the lucky: fated for happiness and contentment, the unlucky: doomed to misery, doomed to insanity... to evil?

Indeed, with the discovery of Chemical X and its properties, the events of the past had fallen into crystal clarity. He had named the young chimp... Jojo. He had predicted and played the role he knew he had to play, for the benefit of those around him. In a way, that was a unique time, to be the knowing fulfiller of history. He felt powerful, godlike, even more than when he delved into the unknown, created new mysteries, basked in accolades, or had sex. ...Though that last one hadn't been a particularly recent memory.

Now, he swam in uncharted waters.

Waters teeming with sharks.

He unlocked the door, and saw Mojo asleep on the couch, and heard laughter from upstairs. It was two hours past the girls' bedtime. Silently, he hung his hat up, and his overcoat. Idly, he noticed a long red hair on the shoulder, and picked if off. Staring at it, for just a moment, he felt the texture between his fingers, and then slowly let it fall to the carpet, forgotten.

"Jojo!"

"What what?! I didn't do it!" Mojo shot bolt upright. The Professor almost smiled at the reaction, but Mojo's resulting glare discouraged it. Oddly, the Professor recognized the look: unrepentant guilt.

"I trust the girls weren't any trouble?" The Professor beat around the bush, and made no direct accusations. "And that they behaved themselves? ...This time?"

"They were perfect little angels." Mojo sneered, in disgust. He yelled up the stairs. "BOYS! Time to go!!"

"Right!" "Sure!" "Just a sec!" Came the voices from upstairs. Brick was the first to actually come downstairs, and he came alone. His red eyes carried a hint of tension, and he seemed almost tired.

"Professor Utonium." He inclined his head. "You have lovely daughters, sir."

"I am aware of that fact." The Professor resisted the urge to sneer. The boy reminded him too much of himself, at that age. Only exaggerated in every negative respect.

"I hope you don't mind, but we kept the girls up late." Brick reached under his hat, and took out a small round microdisk. "I also broke your pipe, I'm afraid."

"I can afford another."

The Professor knelt down, and watched, impassively, as Brick looked down at the small disk, and promptly melted it into slag in his palm. Brick then cupped his hands, and with a small grunt crushed the remains into a fine dust. He looked up at the older man dangerously.

"We're all friends and associates in a way." Brick spoke, and the Professor's eyes passed over Mojo, who was silent. Brick was speaking for both of them, and not just for practicality's purposes.

"Another One..." Brick said, softly. "Will be coming for us tomorrow. I suggest you put the girls to bed. They'll need their strength." Two cold red eyes looked to the side, as the upstairs door opened, and the whole group came down.

"We are leaving!" Mojo spoke up to them, his voice returning as the mask of authority shifted slightly. "We are exiting the building, so that we will no longer be in this house, but rather our own."

"Right, right!" Boomer waved to the girls as he floated out. "See ya later, B-Cup, Red, Bubbles!"

"Yeah. Somethin' like that." Butch paused at the door, but didn't say anymore on the subject.

Brick just smiled, pleasantly, at them.

"Another time." He gave a quick smirk, turned, and left. Mojo followed, his cape billowing as he walked. When the door shut behind them, the Professor looked over his girls carefully. They looked to be alive and well, though obviously tired. He leaned over a bit, to get a closer look at Buttercup.

"Honey, are you all right? You've got a bruise on your cheek..."

"Butch kind of socked me..." She looked down, a bit embarrassed. The Professor frowned.

"That's..."

"We were just playing around!" Buttercup said, quickly.

She was defending him. The thought only made the Professor frown more deeply. Brick had done his job well. Truthfully, he knew Butch hadn't hit her for no reason, and between the two aggressive children, he could imagine things getting a bit out of hand. Still, there was no excuse for it - for the lack of control. Bad as he had been at that age, the Professor had never really hurt anyone who wasn't a total bully. Worse, tough as she was, Buttercup was still his little girl.

"I'm sure you were." He took up a fatherly tone. "But next time be more careful when you roughhouse. Especially with Brick and his brothers. Now: get changed for bed. You can tell me what happened when I come to tuck you in."

"Ok!" Blossom said, first, quickly agreeing with him. Bubbles just yawned, and Buttercup nodded. They headed upstairs. Running a hand through his still thick hair, the Professor noticed that Mojo had left the television on. Walking over to the couch, he saw the controller wedged in between two seat cushions. Picking it up, he felt something slip between his fingers and float to the floor: a small scrap of paper. Ignoring the television for the moment, he bent over and picked it up.

"Professor Utonium, we need to talk. Words and thoughts must be discussed between you and I, for the benefit of both. This proposed conversation..." The Professor turned the scrap of paper over. "...Is scheduled for the seventh of this month, provided we survive it, at your old lab. This note was composed and written by Mojo Jojo."

"Interesting." The Professor folded the note, and stared at it intently. It was possible that it was a trap, yet it was also possible that Mojo was willing to switch sides. Or, it could be a double cross. Or even a triple cross. A smile crept up his face, as the Professor thought over the possibilities.

With a curious eye, he opened the back of the controller, where the batteries would have been. However, instead of revealing several small batteries, a single tiny round microdisk ejected into the Professor's palm. Holding it up to the ceiling, he nodded to himself.

"It seems Sarah was right." He smirked. "I've still got it."

The disk glinted like a jewel in the light.

* * *

June 6

"Attention! Attention! Townsville as declared a Special State of Emergency throughout the four boroughs. Please relocate to the nearest designated shelter in a calm and orderly fashion."

Sarah Bellum waited, impatiently, on the back roof of the Town Hall. She could hear the voice from all around, from all over the city. Typical of Townsville, however, 'calm and orderly' didn't accurately describe the actions of the people, who were running around in random directions like headless chickens. Even some of the police, who should be directing the people, were in a state of panic.

Once again, John had underestimated the raw stupidity of the masses.

Over the last month, he'd proposed a system of underground shelters in anticipation of another major attack. It had fallen to her, however, to get the funds and legal permission for their construction. They were well placed and superbly designed, though expensive, but Miss Bellum had well known that John Utonium knew more about the reoccurring monster attacks on Townsville than anyone. True, they'd never had such a system before, and he had never really insisted on such a thing before, but she had trusted his judgment, and had seen his plans come to quick fruition.

The people, however, weren't as cooperative.

She tapped her foot, anxiously. The people would, at this point, have to fend for themselves - she couldn't deal with them right now. She had enough problems just dealing with the Mayor.

"Miss Bellum!" he called out, as he finally rushed from the roof door, escorted by two guards. He was flanked by his wife, and had a pickle jar and a hastily packed luggage bag under his arms. "Were are we going again? I love surprise vacations!"

"This isn't a vacation, Mayor. This is a crisis... Townsville is being attacked!"

"Again?" He said, dejectedly.

"This way, please." She addressed the Mayor's wife, not feeling particularly in the mood to cut through to his reasoning centers. She headed for the waiting helicopter, and the Mr. and Mrs. Mayor followed. With a minor tremble, the copter was off and into the air over the city. Looking out the window, Sarah saw three floating dots over the tallest building in the city, also waiting. And in the distance, near the docks, something horrible was starting to make itself known.

* * *

"Its... its that thing..."

"None other." Brick watched as the cloudy mirage settled over a part of the city. As it did, buildings started to fall apart and slowly disintegrate. "Boomer! Fire the probe!"

"Gotcha." Boomer lifted a bazooka-like weapon, and flipped out a targeting scope. Closing one eye, he took aim at the anomaly, and fired. The resulting missile split in midair, revealing a sensitive scanning apparatus. Boomer tapped the side of the headphone he was wearing. "Package is away, pops."

Brick and his brothers narrowed their eyes, their vision magnifying to follow the sensor probe. Without much of an impact, it hit the 'body' of the mirage, heading for what seemed to be its center. As they watched, slowly, the missile itself started to strip away, layer-by-layer, bit-by-bit. It was literally falling apart at the molecular level. After only a second or so, it shorted out completely, and ceased functioning. In less then ten seconds, it was little more than a husk of scattered carbon dust.

"What the hell...?" Butch involuntarily floated back and away, in abject shock. "Holy shit, dude!"

Boomer adjusted his shirt. He was sweating. "How are we supposed to fight something like that?"

"We'll find a way," Brick answered, calmly. "We'll find a weakness, and then we'll kill it. Just like the others."

"It's eating the city! It's... it's eating it!" Boomer pointed. "Look at those buildings!"

Brick did. He watched, as the structures in the area of the mirage melted and dissolved. It was like they were decaying, but at a greatly accelerated pace. It was like a force of entropy. Simple contact with it would cause molecular bonds to fall apart and break down. It was an insidious and frankly horrible was of getting the job done.

This... had been the fate of many of those poor creatures that once inhabited Monster Island. Those that had avoided the other Ones that came for them faced this... thing... and had simply been eaten alive while they fought, vainly. Even the strongest of them, even the most invulnerable of them, would have been no match for this sort of thing. The thought that, had Brick not acted when he did and smothered it and all of Monster Island in lava, this thing could have arrived at the same time as one of the others, before they were really ready, troubled the Rowdyruff leader. In truth, Brick had wanted the island scoured just to cover his tracks.

"Brick! Look!" Butch pointed to one of the buildings.

Brick turned his attention there, and saw them. It was difficult to sort out, given all the background noise, so he hadn't heard the screams. Several people, running around and out of a building, like they were on fire. In a way, actually, they were. They were on the absolute periphery of the anomaly, and Brick could see their bodies falling apart, layer-by-layer.

"We..." Boomer caught himself. "Shouldn't we do something?"

"Close your eyes." Brick's voice was bleak. "Those people are already dead."

Boomer didn't close his eyes, but he looked away, down to the streets, which were still full of people. He tried to shut out the screams, tried not to distinguish them from the sounds of simple panic from below. Butch did the same. Only Brick watched those people's final moments.

His expression hardly changed.

"I'm going to get these idiots underground," Butch said, suddenly. "Its better than just floating here and waiting for Mojo to get done with his analysis!"

"I'll help!" Boomer seconded, and both boys faced their leader.

Brick paused. "Fine. If any of you see the girls, stop them before they do anything stupid, alright?"

"You got it, Bossman!" Butch gave him a quick nod, and shot off to help those down below. Without hesitation, Boomer headed off in another direction to do the same. Brick sneered, gave the slowly advancing 'mirage' one last look, mentally calculating its speed and direction, and headed off.

* * *

"Its substance is... not a form of normal matter."

"How is that possible?"

"That..." Mojo added. "Would require additional research, because at present, we do not know, and thus, cannot answer that question."

"Exactly." The Professor sighed. He looked around the assembled group. As always, Brick and Blossom had taken the most interest in the information he and Mojo had been able to get together, and the others mainly hung back and waited. Some, like Boomer and Butch, had a mild interest in the details, while Buttercup and Bubbles didn't seem as inclined.

"And the decaying effect..." Brick asked. "Is a product of this abnormal matter?"

"Yes. At first, based on initial information, Mojo here theorized that there were localized space-time fluctuations that disrupted normal matter, however, recent long-range analysis has proven this to be false..."

Mojo nodded, grimly. "Spectrometric, interferometric and dimensional markers indicate a stable state not conducive to..."

"AH!" Boomer yelled, suddenly. "Brain freeze!!"

"Perhaps it would be better to skip right to the meat of things?" Blossom suggested. Brick had warned her that there had likely already been a good deal of casualties caused by this latest incursion, and she didn't want to even think about precisely how many. The... cloud... thing was still advancing towards them.

"I agree." Brick echoed her initiative. "You can write a paper on the details later. We need to kill it as soon as possible."

"That ...may not be possible." Professor Utonium took a long draw from his cigarette. Normally, he made a point of not smoking when the girls were around, and until recently, he preferred a more dignified pipe. However, when the girls had seemed dead, over a month ago, he's fallen back on his bed of coffin nails. It was a dirty habit, too, but given the present situation, perhaps understandable.

"What do you mean, not possible?" Brick took a step forward, getting closer to the projected display of information on the creeping corruption that Mojo and the Professor had put up. He searched it over with his eyes, quickly. Desperately. "What about a Living Core?"

"There does not appear to be one." Mojo closed his eyes. He looked mentally defeated.

"Not within the body of abnormal matter, anyway," The Professor corrected. "Given that there must be one, we can only theorize that it is located elsewhere."

"Wait!" Blossom cut in. "How do you know there had to be one? What is this 'Living Core' stuff, anyway? I've never heard of it before, and now you..." She point to Brick. "Always seem to be looking for it!"

The three: one man, one ruff, one neither, exchanged quick glances.

"It just means ...a weak spot." Brick explained.

"Like the heart." The Professor added.

"Or the central nervous system, from which the nervous system radiates into the..." Mojo started.

"But...!" Blossom still didn't understand. From what she was hearing, this thing wasn't even alive. Why did it HAVE to have some kind of 'living core?' It could just as easily be some mindless non-conscious cloud of toxic waste or something that came and went with the winds.

"Blossom..." Brick's eyes met hers, radiating cold confidence. Radiating pure domination. She wanted to press the issue, but the look in his eyes made her realize that now wasn't the best time for it. What worried her wasn't so much Brick and Mojo keeping secrets, but her own father... the Professor. Then again, perhaps she was just being paranoid. It was just as likely that they were oversimplifying things for the benefit of others.

'Yes,' she told herself, 'That was definitely the most likely explanation.'

"We have determined a way of finding the weak spot, based on the relative density and flow of the tidal currents within the area of abnormal matter." The Professor changed the subject with a bit of good news.

"And the bad news is...?" Brick, of course, wanted to know the catch - the reason they hadn't already followed through with the Professor's 'good news.'

"The bad news is that it requires triangulation from within the area itself. That cannot be accomplished, because any probe sent into the body will cease functioning before we can get anything approaching an accurate readout." Professor Utonium took another long drag from the cigarette.

"Can't we... just fly in? Real quick?" Butch spoke up, confirming that he had, indeed, been listening. "Like flying into a volcano... our skin should protect us, right?"

"Maybe for a very short period of time." The Professor scratched his chin. "The energy dampening effect that your powers give you isn't powerful enough to survive the trip."

"We'd be striped to the bones in seconds that deep into the body." Brick painted a grizzly image.

"It would require an energy field more than twice that you can individually generate within the same surface area." Mojo explained, with unusual succinctness.

"So if we... huddled together...?" Blossom asked.

"It wouldn't help, because the surface area would increase." Brick took off his hat, and scratched his head. Blossom watched him - it was unusual to see him without his hat on, and his hair looked flattened and uncared for. It was, she supposed, the exact opposite of the way she cared for and took great pride in her hair.

"We have thought the problem over, attempted to see from every angle, and come to no definitive solution." Mojo crossed his arms, and looked at Brick. Silently, he waited for his protégé to come to the conclusion Mojo knew he would. This was the moment he had waited for, but he had to hold his tongue, and make sure the boy suspected nothing.

"Tactics aren't exactly my specialty." The Professor admitted, and looked at the two respective leaders of their teams. Blossom and Brick stood, and thought. Behind them, the others, even Bubbles, tried to come up with some sort of solution, though all knew that the most likely plan to be followed would come from either of the redheads.

"I..." Brick finally spoke up. "Have been toying with an idea that may work."

"Well? Let's hear it!" Blossom encouraged him. She hadn't come up with anything yet. Brick folded his arms behind his back and started to pace, like a general in front of his troops.

"I have spent more than a little time carefully dissecting and examining two of your techniques." He motioned to the Powerpuff Girls in general, and Blossom in particular. "Specifically the 'Starburst Ray' and the 'Flaming Feline' variants. Your ability to ...merge, for lack of a better word, for short periods of time is something I have never been able to replicate with Boomer or Butch."

"Neither of those techniques would help us here, though." Blossom observed. The 'Flaming Feline' technique still had a form that encapsulated the girls' physical bodies. Additionally, it was an individual 'creature.' It wouldn't be of any use triangulating the monster's living core/weak spot.

"No. But it gave me an idea... an idea for just such a desperate occasion." Brick took a deep breath. "You all, no doubt, remember the attack we Rowdyruffs used to finish you girls off?"

They all nodded. Brick hadn't been conscious for it, but they had seen Butch use the attack, by himself, when he closed the distance with the last monster they'd battled. Aside from that, the attack wasn't something that was easy to forget, though they'd only caught the end part of it in that first major fight they'd had.

"In the attack... we Rowdyruffs use what could be considered a sort of supercharge that coverts us into a sort of highly excited... quasi-matter state akin to plasma. The inherent instability and power of that form, however, makes maintaining it difficult."

Blossom slowly nodded. "I think I see where you're going with this..."

"Then let me be frank." Brick's brow lowered into a frown. "What I propose is a sort of layering... we will superimpose ourselves on you girls' physical forms. The surface area exposed will be the same, but the combined power should be far more than even double that you already possess."

Blossom crossed her arms as well. "It's a dangerous plan."

"But one that will work..." Brick snorted. "I am aware of the danger. It is greater for us, then for you. But this... thing must be stopped! After the merging, we three should be able to move within the mass of abnormal matter, triangulate the position of this thing's weak spot, and destroy it. After that, we should separate into our original forms naturally."

"I don't like it." Buttercup said. It was her first statement of the meeting.

"You think I do?" Butch grunted.

Boomer and Bubbles were silent up until then.

"Who?" Bubbles asked.

"We all have different strengths and weaknesses. We should pair off accordingly." Brick answered. "I propose the following: myself and Bubbles, Butch and Blossom, and Boomer and Buttercup."

"No!" Bubbles yelped, out of the blue. The suddenness and strength of the reaction surprised more than Brick.

"What do you mean: No?" Brick asked.

"No!" Bubbles said again. "I don't want to be with you. You're... you're mean."

Brick's eyebrows rose at that remark.

"What about Brick-Buttercup, Butch-Bubbles, and Boomer-me?" Blossom amended. The group seemed to consider that, when Mojo spoke up.

"That would not be wise." Mojo paused for everyone's attention. "Your individual powers will clash. The most stable and effective pairing would be between counterparts, that is to say, between those of the same color. It is no coincidence that this is so, but a product of your individual energies, powers, and... you get the idea."

Brick gave his former mentor a sidelong glance. He was marginally suspicious. Then again, Brick was suspicious of everyone and everything. Mojo kept his cool, and said no more, leaving it up to the children to decide. Blossom slowly nodded in acceptance.

"I'm... I'm ok with it." Everyone looked at her, but she kept her chin up high, and tried not to look embarrassed. "Besides... It might be... neat."

"Fine." Brick agreed, a bit reluctantly. "We'll pair up with our counterparts."

Outwardly he was silent, but inwardly, Mojo Jojo was sporting a broad, terrible smile.


	4. Gauntlet: Pain part 4

Like a good communist, I own nothing.

* * *

"Gauntlet: Pain"  
Part 4

* * *

Buttercup watched as Brick and his brothers practiced focusing their power inward, getting ready to follow through with their leader's plan. She had mixed feelings about what they were going to do. Of course, she didn't really like the prospect of 'merging' with Butch or any of the boys on any level. The very thought sent shivers down her spine, and irked her pride, yet at the same time, a small hidden part of her was curious and even eager to experience it.

To the side, in Mojo's lair, she could see the sight of the city of Townsville, from a dozen different angles at the same time. An aerial view dominated: it showed the steady advance of the strange corruption of what had been dubbed 'abnormal matter' as it cut a swath through the city. In its path, it left nothing of any substance, just a blackened glassy film over the ground. Entire buildings, whole skyscrapers, were stripped bare in minutes, all the way down to their foundations.

That was why she was doing this.

How many people had been killed, already?

She didn't want to think of the number. She didn't want to think of them as just a statistic; they were people, human beings, with friends, family, even enemies. They weren't numbers. Deep down, she wanted to talk about the conflicting feelings that ran through her, but not in front of Brick or Boomer or Blossom. Maybe Bubbles. Or Butch.

She trusted him.

She didn't need to hide anything from him.

He had seen at her lowest, at her worst... she had been suicidal; she had wanted him to kill her. Thinking back to it she felt only deep shame towards herself, and gratitude. Gratitude, because he hadn't killed her, when she had given him every reason to. She had provoked him, she had driven him, and he hadn't done it. He had seen that side of her, and never spoken of it to another soul.

Yes, she trusted him - with her life, and with her feelings and thoughts.

The problem was that he wasn't alone.

Perhaps that was why she was, at least part of her anyway, looking forward to this merging. Would it be a sharing, of sorts, with two individuals thinking as one? Would there be dominance... and would it be hers or his? How would it feel? Would it feel like a violation, like an alien presence, or would there be a completion... a unity... a symbiosis?

"Are you ready?" Blossom asked the boys, a bit anxious herself. She was wearing Brick's communicator headset, just like Bubbles wore Boomer's and Buttercup sported Butch's.

Standing between her sisters, Bubbles seemed the most stoic. She looked to be deep in thought, probably mentally preparing herself. In a way, she was lucky, Buttercup supposed. Boomer was sort of a jerk, but he was Bubbles' friend, sort of like a wacky older brother almost. Of them, Buttercup realized, Blossom would be having the hardest time.

And yet she had been the first to volunteer.

Brick.

Buttercup watched him. He was in the air, floating calmly; arms to the side. Around him, a halo of red light pulsed and circled. It was identical to that his brothers had worked up, as they slowly 'cycled up' (Brick had called it) towards their Final Attack state. Unlike Boomer and Butch, however, something about Brick made him look malevolent. Maybe it was just the color - sort of dry dark red energy, opposed to Boomer's cool blue and Butch's vibrant nature green. Slowly, Brick's eyes opened, glowing the same color as his corona of light.

"I am." He looked to the side, at his brothers, who had also opened their eyes. As one, they landed on the floor. "Blossom and I will go first. Copy what I do, and don't interfere."

Boomer and Butch nodded.

"Good luck, bro." Boomer said, first.

"Yeah." Butch seconded.

Brick stepped forward, purposefully, his body slightly indistinct as he moved. Blossom also walked forward, towards him. Too soon, it seemed, they were face to face. Brick blinked, and his mouth moved, words out of synch with his lips.

"Turn around," He had said. "Relax and open yourself to me. Do not fight it."

Blossom nodded, and turned so her back was to him. Her breathing had quickened, and she flinched involuntarily when his hands touched, and slowly entered, her shoulders. There was a crackling sound, like electricity, and with total suddenness, Brick surged forward, directly into her. Blossom stumbled forward, and let out a loud gasp. The sound intensified, and Brick's halo of energy crept in and out of the Powerpuff Girl, and then suddenly disappeared entirely.

Blossom straightened out, and looked down at her hands.

There had been no physical change.

"Interesting-ing." The voice that left her mouth was a deep base echo. "Our physical metamorphosis seems to exclude a physiological adaptation-tation."

"Um... Blossom?" Bubbles reached out, but drew back when Brick/Blossom looked in their direction and they saw her eyes. They were a stark, dazzling, glowing ruby color.

"We are Blossom-som." Brick/Blossom said, and started to move her limbs. "We are a function of two variables-ables, both less than the whole-ole. You inquire-ire? You querry-erry? To answer: the merging is a unity-ity. The variables are subsumed-umed, but still conscious and separate, still whole-ole."

"Are you...?" The Professor had been watching the process closely, as had Mojo, who had been silent since the whole thing had been proposed.

"Stronger-ger? More powerful-ful?" Brick/Blossom flexed her muscles and took a deep breath. "Yes-ss, that, and much much more-ore. Our intelligence had increased as well-ll... I can feel it-t." The amalgam faced her sisters. "You six will do as our variables did-id."

An order?

Buttercup frowned. Already, this combination of Brick and Blossom was bossing them around. The tone hadn't even indicated that she... it... whatever... had even thought about asking. No doubt Blossom's bossiness had merged with Brick's and produced a sort of uber-bossiness. Buttercup snorted in annoyance at the very thought.

"Bubbles...?" Boomer walked towards the blue Powerpuff, his movements indistinct just like Brick's had been. Bubbles held a hand up to him when he got close, and tried to touch the side of his face. His cheek was immaterial, and her hand passed through it with little resistance. A tear slid down her cheek, but there was no fear in her movements as the two children slid together into a single being. The sound was slightly different with Boomer and Bubbles, as Bubbles slowly pivoted from the embrace.

"This is very strange-ange." She said, her tone just slightly deeper than Bubbles' normal voice. "I feel very... tingly-ly. But good-od, sort of-of."

Buttercup gulped, and walked up to Butch, who was standing close by, his arms crossed. He smiled when she got close, carefully facing away from Brick/Blossom and Boomer/Bubbles so that only she could see his expression. He leaned in closer, and his lips moved.

"Here goes nothing... I guess. See ya on the flipside." Were his words, and his arms unfurled and spread out, as if to give her a hug. Impatience getting to her, Buttercup reached forward, and gasped, surprised, at the texture of his body. She reached into him, his substance like a thick mist, and pulled him into her. She saw his face getting closer, eyes closed. At the last second, before she too closed her eyes, she saw his mouth move, and the words registered a half second before, like a jolt of fire, they merged.

"Greeneyes..."

He was like a surge of energy and adrenalin in her veins, like an injection of raw power. She heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing, but him - inside her blood and mind. His voice was like a soft whisper, a reassuring presence that became a natural part of her, like the arms and legs she had been born with. There was a conference of wills, a doubling of thoughts and emotions and experiences and memories and a million things in a raging torrent that came and went in a millisecond.

It felt... great.

Beyond great.

It felt a thousand times as intense and wonderful as the candy the Mayor had given them. Words, thoughts even, failed to describe the feeling that permeated her body. And with it came what they had so needed to save the city, themselves, and everything they had ever known.

"Such... such... beautiful... POWER!!" Butch/Buttercup let out a deep content rumble. There was no stutter to her tenor voice. "My god..." She gritted her teeth, reveling in the feeling. "Professor... Mojo... fathers... you can't imagine our power now... We are ready!"

"As are we-e." Boomer/Bubbles agreed. "Let do what must be done-ne."

"Give us the sensor devices-ces," Brick/Blossom demanded, facing Mojo. "NOW."

"They are... over there." Mojo pointed. On a foldable metal table were three small black boxes. Brick/Blossom's eyes narrowed at his words. The Professor quickly remembered what she had just said. She hadn't wanted to know where they were - she had wanted them. She had given an order, and Mojo hadn't followed it. Quickly, he ran over to them, picked up the black sensor boxes, and brought them over. Holding out one of them to Brick/Blossom, he waited for her to take it.

Looking down at the device, Brick/Blossom didn't move.

"We did not ask you to get them-em. We asked him-im." She snarled, quickly growing angry. The Professor nodded, and put the boxes back on the table. Mojo got the drift, ran over to get them, and brought them to Brick/Blossom.

"Strike one-ne. Pray you do not make another-er." Brick/Blossom took the three boxes from Mojo with a low growl that promised punishment for future offenses. She turned, and addressed her siblings. "Bubbles! Buttercup! Come!"

The two exchanged glances, and walked up.

Each one was handed a sensor box in turn.

"You will follow my lead-ead. We will separate a quarter kilometer from the target area-ea." She floated over to the overhead map of the area and pointed to two spots. "We will arrive there thirty seconds from now exactly-ly. By then you will be in position-ion... the sensory effect will be optimal-al."

Butch/Buttercup growled at the orders she was being given, but said nothing. Brick/Blossom gave her siblings a few seconds to remember their position, and then headed out at a slow speed. When Boomer/Bubbles and Butch/Buttercup took to the air, the three suddenly picked up speed, apparently simply vanishing in thin air out the open door to Mojo's Observatory.

"Hmm." The Professor was obviously thinking deeply about something, but kept his thoughts to himself. Mojo looked up at him, silently wondering if the older man suspected that he was up to anything. After a moment, the Professor sighed.

"Let's get ready for that data stream." He walked off to one of the command consoles that had brought out of one of Mojo's Labs. Watching him, Mojo let out a deep sigh of relief. With any luck, no one would suspect his motives in pairing them up with their counterparts before it was too late.

* * *

Boomer/Bubbles entered the substance of the all-consuming cloud. There was a very faint tingle that engulfed her body, but the powerful energy-dampening field that danced on the surface of her skin negated the danger significantly. She had been told earlier to hold her breath, but still she could tell that what passed for the 'air' was thick, like watered down molasses.

It flowed like an invisible ocean.

Down below and around, she could see the ravaged remains of the city. A few tenacious bits of the street below still remained, but were steadily being corrupted and decayed by the cloud of abnormal matter. Already, much of the ground was nothing more than a nasty black and gray glass-like substance.

She landed, in what she recognized as her designated spot.

Looking down at the black box she held, Boomer/Bubbles pressed the obvious red shallow button on the top left corner. It didn't really acknowledge that it had activated, so she focused her hearing, and, amazingly, heard the electronics inside working. Curious, she looked up at the sky, and found the sun - looking at it hardly fazed her. Concentrating, she magnified her vision, and found her sight leaving the atmosphere, going past a sea of darkness, and up to the surface of the star. She could see individual swirls of plasma and storms on the surface, and past that, but hazier and less distinct, down deeper into the corona.

Getting a bit dizzy, she blinked, and was suddenly back on Earth.

Waiting, and growing impatient and uneasy, she thought about their enemy. Bubbles herself knew nothing of it, beyond the fact that it was a monster of some sort, and that it had to be destroyed before it hurt any more people, and destroyed any more of Townsville and the world in general. Boomer, however, knew a bit more. Bubbles heard his thoughts, echoed his feelings and concerns, and saw in her mind's eye an island... blackened and ravaged, populated by the giant corpses of hundreds of monsters of every variety. Then the island was aflame.

Curious, she dived deeper into the memory, and found herself someplace else entirely. Like a lost diver in some endless coral reef, she had been looking for one thing, and ended up with something similar, but different. She saw another monster, more like the ones she was used to - it had a twisted face, and a smaller one attached onto the side, both eyes just empty sockets. She saw Townsville in the background, and herself, but not herself, blasting at it with her eye beams.

Then, in a flash, there was something else.

She realized she was seeing things in reverse, going back into the earliest of Boomer's memories. She wanted to stop, or to at least remain in control of the sensation, but like the waters of a burst dam, the flood would not be abated. Faster and faster it went, uncontrolled and random, until she saw Brick. He was smiling - honestly smiling, like Bubbles had never seen him do. There was another of the random flashes, and then darkness.

Only... in the darkness...

She was not alone.

Two narrow strips, like chipped diamonds, focused on her - eyes! Was this the face of death that she now saw? Like drills, they cut into her, and she felt helplessness and pain overwhelm her mind and body.

"He is mine." A voice, full of daggers and malice, dripped. "I am his."

**You**

**Are**

**Not.**

* * *

Brick/Blossom was also waiting.

"You have done well." A deeper voice told itself.

"Can I see you? Please? I must!" A more feminine one responded.

"We must remain separate." The male voice said, firmly. "I command it."

"This is my body. My mind. You are a guest..."

The male voice laughed.

"No." He said. "You misjudge me. I am not a guest. I am a conqueror!"

Deep within Brick/Blossom, a war raged. Invisible armies crashed over a mental battlefield, over invisible lines. Each side advanced and retreated, won and lost, a thousand times a minute. And then, there were the lulls in the war, when the two Wills conversed.

Blossom's mind-image appeared in resplendent white and gold gown with pink trims and a display of jewels fit for the richest of queens. She was an adult, as she dreamed she would one day become: beautiful and confident. She walked with an entourage of women, dressed only slightly less perfectly than herself, all sporting well-hidden weapons.

She met with Brick, whose self-image was a stark contrast to her own. He, too, imaged himself as an adult, a striking man with close cut red hair, and brooding dark eyes. While Blossom imagined herself as tall and majestic, Brick kept himself at medium height, no more and no less than those who stood by his side, each a carbon copy man in military fatigues. Brick himself wore a military outfit fit for a general, or a dictator, and a red and green beret. All those who stood by him were armed, and sported their weapons openly.

The two sat at the table, where a modest dinner awaited them.

"You continue to fight me. Why?" Blossom asked, and she took a glass of wine to her lips.

"It is the nature of man to fight and to war."

"You cooperate when necessary." She countered.

Brick smirked. "It is the nature of man to cooperate when survival demands it."

"I am only defending myself."

"I am only defending myself." He echoed her.

"Don't do that." She said, a bit angry. "You are doing no such thing. You would dominate this relationship completely if you could. No doubt that was why you wanted to be paired up with my sister."

Brick 'hmfed' and reached for a loaf of bread. Without buttering it, she tore off a piece, and started to eat. After a few chews, he swallowed, and spoke.

"It is the nature of man to dominate those weaker than him."

"It is the nature of humanity to protect those weaker than themselves..."

"Protection is no different than Domination. You know this."

"You tell me often enough." Blossom ate daintily, and there was a moment of silence.

"So long as I live..." Brick said, taking another bite of unbuttered bread. "I shall dominate those I can."

"Ah. The truth." Blossom put her fork down, and looked him in the eyes.

"There can be no lies here. ...Unfortunately." Brick frowned.

"Why say that? Why hide so much from me, and from others?"

"The truth is a terrible thing, little girl." Brick leaned back, and took a long drink of water. "Do not be so quick to seek it out. You are happier not knowing."

She smiled at him. "I am less happy knowing that I do not know."

"The funny thing is..." Brick narrowed his eyes at her. "I'd say the same thing in your position. However, I will not yield to you what I do not deem necessary."

Blossom's tone hardened. "Do not think I will be rebuffed so easily."

"I relish the moment your actions catch up to your boasts." Brick pursed his lips, as if feeling great joy. "Know this... your pain... your secrets... your fears... all these mean nothing to me. All these pale in comparison to what I know and have seen and what I have felt."

His willpower flexed, and Blossom saw a memory - her memory, appear in the sky overhead. She saw herself taking the set of golf clubs, stealing them, for the Professor on Father's Day. She saw herself, standing there impotently, letting Femme Fatale go free. She saw herself, gorged on candy and half conscious, while Mojo thrashed the town. Brick's eyes searched her for signs of anger, outrage, and embarrassment: weakness.

He found none.

Instead, she forced her mind on his, directly. His willpower was formidable, his mental blocks nearly impenetrable, and his memories a labyrinthine maze of unreadable code. And yet, none knew him as well as she, and with total focus, she pushed deeper into his mind, more boldly than ever before. Surface memories would be of no help to her - she would only 'feed' her false or useless thoughts.

She mentally heard him snarl at her reckless and unexpected maneuver. She had the upper hand, only in that they were in her body, and imposed on her mind. A tiny memory, hidden under a hundred folds, caught her attention, and with all her strength, she pulled it free from its bindings and laid it bare.

She saw, high above them, the image of a scrap of purple cloth, with a hint of black on the edge. Slowly, it floated down to rest on a pool of red blood. Blossom couldn't believe it, but it looked like...

"Bunny?" She blinked, not believing, not understanding. That had been part of Bunny's costume.

"Enough!" Brick stood, and threw the table aside, spilling food and drink over the floor. He motioned to his men, and stormed off without another word. The war was back on.

Blossom/Brick shook her head, and looked down at the small box in her hands. Then, abruptly, she heard a scream pierce the air, loud and long. It was Bubbles. Brick/Blossom tensed to see what was happening, but caught herself and remained in position. The mission came first - they had to triangulate the location of this One's weakness. Even as Bubbles screamed, in obvious terror, Brick/Blossom remained in position, waiting. Waiting for the signal...

"We've got it!" The Professor's voice sounded, and in that instant, Brick/Blossom dropped the black box, and disappeared in a flash. She found Boomer/Bubbles on the ground, her physical form wavering, holding the little black sensory box close to her chest. Already, the blue ruff/puff was starting to cough, after inhaling the abnormal matter that was in the air. Grabbing her, Brick/Blossom focused her power, and in a blink she was out of the area and in the air and then even higher: into the upper atmosphere.

As atmosphere gave way to near vacuum, Boomer/Bubbles gasped, and the air and matter she had inhaled were sucked out into the void. Bringing her charge back to earth, Brick/Blossom placed her sister down on a nearby building top, and started CPR. There obviously hadn't been too much damage done, because Boomer/Bubbles quickly started breathing after just a few chest thrusts.

As she did, her glowing blue sapphire eyes opened; there was a popping sound and a bright flash. Brick/Blossom blinked, saw that Boomer and Bubbles had separated, and that they were lying next to each other, unconscious. She also noted that Boomer was naked and had reformed minus his clothes.

"Curious-ious." She said, softly. Something caught her eye, and she looked up to see Butch/Buttercup descending, slowly, her arms crossed.

"What happened?" The brunette amalgam asked, only slightly concerned.

"Premature deconstruction into initial variables apparently-ly." Brick/Blossom shrugged, and stood up. They had plenty of time to deal with the thing, given that they'd soon have the exact location of its living core. They could then forgo moving the two children until after the abomination was dealt with.

"These two are not in any physical danger-er." Brick/Blossom said, as much for herself as for her comrade.

"Good," Butch/Buttercup said, sounding a bit bored. "Can we get on with this, then?"

Brick/Blossom tapped the side of her headphone. "Contacting associates-es. You will divulge to us the location of the target-et."

"One moment..." The Professor paused over the communicator. "All right. Mojo and I have triple checked the data. You're not going to believe this, but we've calculated that the living core is projecting its body all the way from geosynchronous orbit, almost 36,000 kilometers above an area near 90 degrees west... right above the Galapagos Islands."

Brick/Blossom turned to Butch/Buttercup. "You heard that-at, did you not-ot?"

Butch/Buttercup just smirked, and blasted off in a green streak of light, a loud series of sonic booms in her wake. Brick/Blossom scowled, and set off at a similar pace. The data wasn't nearly as specific as she would have preferred, but it would have to do. At nearly top speed, they searched for and found the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of South America in the Pacific, easily enough. Rising high out of the atmosphere and into the fringes of space was equally easy, though judging exact distance traveled was more difficult.

The lack of air wasn't particularly a problem either - given a small amount of preparation time, a Powerpuff or Rowdyruff could operate in an anaerobic state for an extended period of time. Such a state normally weakened the body greatly, but given the incredible power of either ruff/puff combo, it wouldn't likely pose a significant problem. Even in a highly weakened anaerobic state, either of the amalgams was stronger than one of their components at full power.

No... the problem was finding a lone tiny black object in the endless black expanse of space. Looking around, seeing nothing, both Brick/Blossom and Butch/Buttercup's patience began to wear thin. It was fortunate, then, that in space no one could hear you swear, or a number of astronauts would have been highly offended. Thousands of miles away and below, in Townsville, the creeping body of abnormal matter continued its steady advance, devouring everyone and everything in its path, directly towards two unconscious targets...


	5. Gauntlet: Pain part 5

Like a good communist, I own nothing.

* * *

"Gauntlet: Pain"  
Part 5

* * *

"Nothing!"

Butch/Buttercup was bordering on losing her cool. They'd been searching for over ten intolerable minutes, and had yet to locate their target. Floating nearly thirty six thousand miles above the equator, she could feel her skin crawl from a mixture of exposure and impotent rage. Buttercup's anger was not simply amplified by Butch's, but complimented by it.

Her body was bubbling with pure power.

All she needed was a target.

Any target.

Fists clenching and unclenching, she looked towards her sister in arms, several thousand miles away, just a tiny speck against the infinite black. Brick/Blossom had obviously not had any luck herself, which only added to the frustration. To her own credit, Butch/Buttercup had searched across practically the entire infrared, visible, and ultraviolet spectrum, using her newly enhanced powers of perception and improved form of 'sight.' She could only assume that Brick/Blossom had also realized the expanded repertoire of abilities at their command and done the same.

Still, no sign of anything resembling a 'Living Core.'

Space debris, yes.

Living Core? No.

Nothing!

Yet it had to be in the general area. Unless the triangulation coordinates had been wrong, and their whole effort high above the earth was a waste of time and exercise in futility. Then, far away, Brick/Blossom started doing something odd. She was firing her eyebeams at low power and high dispersal, but only from one eye, sort of like a flashlight.

Could they do that?

'Anything they can do, we can!'

Both minds thought as one.

Both minds acted as one.

Keeping both eyes open, Butch/Buttercup fired from her right eye. At first, the beam was intense and difficult to control, but she quickly widened it and lowered the power output. It was very much like a flashlight, indeed, and as she scanned the heavens, Butch/Buttercup could see how the technique highlighted small things in orbit that would otherwise have been invisible.

Of course, if this hidden 'Living Core' had a way of cloaking itself from normal detection, then the flashlight effect wouldn't be as great as the actual intensity of the beam. Butch/Buttercup was well aware of her greatly increased power - it felt nearly endless...

Was it?

Increasing the power, but not narrowing the beam, Butch/Buttercup smiled in pleasant amazement. She didn't feel fatigued in the least, despite the oxygen deprivation. The only problem was concentration, but she found even that was coming easier than before. The merging had been the greatest thing they had ever experienced, the greatest gift any two people could give another.

In the distance, her sight passed over a communications satellite, and vaporized it instantly. Butch/Buttercup hardly gave it a second thought beyond realizing it likely wasn't the target she was looking for. There was also the somewhat present worry about those left behind, back in Townsville. Boomer and Bubbles, the Professor and even Mojo Jojo... they had been gone for some time. How much of an advance had the strange cloud of abnormal matter that this Living Core was projecting made?

She did not know.

Oddly, she found herself not really caring.

She wanted to find her target. She wanted to DESTROY it. She wanted to TEAR it apart, BIT by tiny BIT. She wanted to feel its last moments between her hands, before it was extinguished... she wanted to break, she wanted to crush, she wanted to feel... she wanted to feel... her power... She wanted to exercise it! She wanted to use it! Why have a power, why have so much wonderful beautiful power, and not use it?

* * *

Mojo leveled his laser rifle.

The unconscious and immobile form of Professor Utonium looked up at him, mutely condemning him for his crimes. Amid the blinking screens and incessant noise of thinking supercomputers, Mojo's finger tensed on the trigger. A part of him wanted to finish the job - it would be so easy. All he had to do was depress the trigger, and the Professor's head would, quite literally, disappear. There'd be barely enough to scrape together into a thimble.

That was the part of him that so bitterly hated the man.

The Professor's eyes were closed, but the screen had had been looking at was still operational. Mojo looked at it for a moment, and saw Powerpuff Bubbles and Rowdyruff Boomer, one his enemy, one his own son, both unconscious on a rooftop. The Death Cloud's advance had steadily increased in pace towards them, with an almost sentient sense of desperation. Soon, they'd both be gone.

At the thought, Mojo felt another sharp pang of guilt.

He was condemning his sons to death with this act of betrayal. Boomer would die, right where he lay, next to Bubbles, as the Cloud overtook him. Brick would be disposed of when he returned with his brother, if all went according to plan. And then, Butch's fate would be of his own volition. Mojo loved them all, in a way, however he could not play second fiddle to his own child, even if the child was a monster, like Brick.

No.

He reminded himself that Brick would likely dispose of his 'beloved father' when he was no longer useful. It was a matter of self-preservation that Mojo take this one chance at freedom; at reclaiming his normal life, such as it was. The other two boys... If they were to survive their brother Brick, they would demand revenge, they would have run amuck in grief, and worst of all, they may have aligned themselves with the Powerpuff Girls, without Brick's influence. That, above all, was something Mojo could not afford to let happen.

This was his chance.

He wouldn't be himself if he didn't take it.

Again, he found himself looking down at the sleeping Professor, at the man who had been his owner... and much more. Mojo had hoped to use Professor Utonium, had hoped to find in the man a new ally against Brick's schemes and manipulations, but things had gone awry when Powerpuff Bubbles became endangered. Like his own children, the Professor had become a potential enemy and threat, and had to be eliminated. Mojo could not allow him to go out and rescue the two children, and so he had taken the older man out, fast and painless, with a stun rod.

Now, all he had to do was finish the job.

And Kill Professor Utonium.

Mojo's trigger finger felt numb, and with a grunt, he put the weapon away, slung over his shoulder. There was no rush to do the dirty deed. The Professor wouldn't awake for well over an hour or two, and by then, hopefully, everything will have fallen in place. In fact, it might be better this way. With the Professor alive, he could be taken prisoner and interrogated. Yes. Yes! That was much better! Passing his hand over the screen, over the image of Boomer and Bubbles, Mojo closed his eyes and steeled his heart.

Sacrifices had to be made and Pain had to be endured. It was a shame, though. In many ways, those two were his favorites. With a harsh intake of breath, Mojo turned from the scene and went to prepare for the coming of his prodigal son.

* * *

"Wake up... Bubbles..."

Bubbles felt like she'd been thought a taffy pull.

Every muscle ached, and every movement sent spikes of pain up her spine and directly into her brain. Her young mind could barely understand it all, even as it slowly started to fade from sharp pain to dull numbness. She felt tired. She felt exhausted. She felt spent. It was... akin to what she imagined speeding around the world four or five times at full speed would be like. She was not so much low on energy, but her body felt...

Burned out.

She felt like a candle that had flared up and melted away before its time. Like a crayon used too vigorously, until it was little more than a stump. Closing her eyes, she tried to check the amount of strength she had left, and found that there was still a fair bit. However, trying to access that strength, trying to summon her powers, taxed her body to the point of pain.

It made sense.

When she first woke up, her natural impulse was to get up, to escape, to be aware of her situation, and so without thinking she had tried to use her full abilities, hence the pain. Completely disregarding them, now, she found herself able to roll to the side, to her knees, and then eventually to her feet. Her kneecaps threatened to buckle, but she held firm, and stood.

"Bubbles... Be careful..." A dulcet tone found her ear, and she turned, trying to find its source, but found nothing.

"Who... who's there?" Bubbles asked, but as she turned, she realized something else. A whole section of the city... wasn't really there. The buildings were stripped skeletons, and the air wavered dangerously. Her eyes widened in fear and recognition.

"Oh no... oh no!" She took a few involuntary steps back, and tripped on something. She hit the ground hard with her tailbone, but wasn't particularly hurt. Leaning up a little, she saw what she had fallen over.

"Boomer?" She blinked, and rubbed her eyes. Her legs were covering his lower torso, and he certainly seemed solid enough. Of course, he was also in his birthday suit, but she tried not to think about that. At least he was breathing: his chest slowly rising and falling.

He looked very peaceful.

"Bubbles..." The soft voice returned, from somewhere behind her. There was a hint of quickness, haste even, to it this time.

Getting back to her feet, Bubbles leaned over and helped Boomer off the ground. Without her power increasing her strength, it was only slightly more than that of a normal little girl, and carrying Boomer, coupled with her own sore body, was making actual movement almost impossible. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the buildings crumble into irregular black crumbs, like ash.

It was getting closer.

"Bubbles... follow me..."

Gritting her teeth, the blue Powerpuff reluctantly channeled a small fraction of power into her body. The pain was sharp, but not as intense as before, and it allowed her to walk while supporting her Rowdyruff counterpart. She followed the voice, not really knowing why, to the end of one side of the building. The street was, maybe, twenty stories down. She could survive the fall, if she boosted more power into her body, but the shock of it would likely make her pass out. Worse, Boomer probably wouldn't survive it, if he was in the same condition she was.

"What..." Bubbles grimaced a bit, as a hot pain shot up her arm. "What am I going to do? Please... somebody... help me..." An idea came to her, and she tapped the headphone she was still wearing. "Professor... Mr. Mojo? Anyone...?"

"Bubbles... please..." The voice was right in front of her, and a little below. She looked down at the street, but saw no one. Was she losing her mind?

"Who are you?"

"Trust... me... We... we don't have much time..." The soft voice seemed strained, and greatly weakened in strength at the end.

Breathing heavily, Bubbles looked behind again, and saw one edge of the building roof she was on start to break apart, flecks of paint and material breaking off right before her eyes. She looked back to the front, down the side of the building to the merciless concrete below. With a gasp of pain and fear and desperation, Boomer held close in her arms, Bubbles braced herself, closed her eyes...

"Jump!"

And jumped.

* * *

"There you are-re... you little bastard-rd..."

It had taken some time, but the wait had been worth it. Narrowing her eye beams, Brick/Blossom watched in satisfaction as the shimmering surface of the ...thing writhed. The flashlight technique had finally paid off when she'd seen a distinct lack of illumination, a sphere of darkness, in the middle of the light and energy she was putting out. Some sort of energy field was protecting whatever was inside that sphere of darkness, bending light around it perfectly.

It likely even bent radio waves around it.

Truly fascinating.

Pouring more energy into the attack, Brick/Blossom smirked as the energy field began to fluctuate and overload. Obviously, it could only deal with a limited amount of energy, and her output was beginning to exceed that limit. Raining even more power into her eye beams, coming now from both eyes, Brick/Blossom suddenly caught something coming in from the side.

Pivoting slightly, she saw a nearly invisible shifting mass, small, but growing in size. She realized what it was instantly. It was another projection, made in self-defense. Did this One know fear? Did it comprehend that it was not long for this universe? Attacking the mass of abnormal matter was a waste of time - it wasn't completely material and couldn't be dealt with through any sort of physical or energy attack.

Then, the mini-cloud began to coalesce.

With unexpected and amazing quickness, it became like a whip, and shot out at Brick/Blossom with a speed it had never demonstrated before. Reacting instinctively, she raised her hands and caught the head of the whip, sharp and narrow as a blade, just before it could bury itself into her left eye. It pressed forward, like a hungry snake, the rest of its body snapping back and forth, cutting into her shoulders. Each strike felt like a cold chill, and Brick/Blossom's hands were quickly starting to numb.

So: it was capable of adaptation.

It had concentrated itself, greatly improving the deadliness of its attack as the density of abnormal matter increased. Additionally, it was exposing as little of itself as possible, greatly diminishing the surface area it had to break through to get to her. It was concentrating its attack, and fighting with a savage fury, like a cornered animal. Snarling, Brick/Blossom's eyes lanced out beams of fire and death, cutting into and trying to disrupt the super-dense whip of abnormal matter.

While she fought for her life, Butch/Buttercup shot by in a streak of light.

She knew to go straight for the source.

But, as the green ruff/puff grew closer to her target, fists forward, a new mini-cloud began to form in front of her, blocking her path, forming a shield, and then a net. A crisscross of ultra thin killing wires, ready to slice the advancing enemy to pieces. With a savage yell, Butch/Buttercup crossed her arms, and began to glow a bright white-green. Her arms and body began to harden, the texture changing to a sort of dark brown, like bark.

With an inaudible crash, she tore through the razor net. Colliding with the exposed and vulnerable Living Core, she wrapped her hands around it. Turning in mid-flight, her arms glowing with power, a cruel grin on her face, she held it out... and squeezed.

Thousands of miles below, the Death Cloud dissipated. In Brick/Blossom's hands, the whip cloud faded away. Behind Butch/Buttercup, the broken razor-net cloud fell apart and drifted into nothingness.

It was over.

"We win." Butch/Buttercup thought, an echo of pride and joy spreading throughout her heart and soul. In her hands, the black ichor that was all that remained of the Living Core flaked off, and joined its body in oblivion.

* * *

Bubbles fell.

And hit padded carpet.

Sprawled out, she quickly forced herself to recover, and tried to identify her surroundings. It was dark, though the walls themselves seemed to have a reddish glow to them. From what she could see, the place was a mess. It looked like a hurricane had passed through and lingered for a few days, taking great pleasure in scattering and smashing everything that wasn't bolted down and a few things that were.

Even in the dim light, the room was vaguely familiar.

"You came..."

Bubbles stood, and faced the voice. She knew who it was, now. She'd been fooled by it too often; it wouldn't work again. Especially since its owner didn't even seem to be putting as much effort into the deception as before.

"What do you want?" Bubbles asked, voice firm. She stepped in front of Boomer, who was still unconscious.

"You know me... too well..." The voice seemed somewhat strained. Under the torn covers of a bed, something formless shuddered visibly. "I do..." The dulcet tone became a hoarse, but male, tone. "WANT... NEED..." It returned to normal. "Something from you..."

Bubbles knew she was almost powerless. Almost helpless. From under the covers, the face of HIM became visible, but quickly retreated back under the frilly blanket. Only a single claw, looking a bit withered, was visible as it reached for her. She stepped back and out of reach, and the claw flailed impotently just short of grabbing her.

"What do you want from me?" Bubbles asked again, as her eyes searched for the door out of HIM's lair.

There was a short, muffled, ragged cry from under the sheets.

"Help... me..." His feminine voice wavered, getting deeper in tone, then even higher pitched than normal. "Help me... please...only you can carry this cup... I can't... I can't anymore..."

"What are you talking about?" Bubbles hated the dark, and now, not just because it concealed the unknown. Not just because it covered all things in a colorless dark coat, like death. Now she wanted to get away. She needed to get away. Her instincts were blaring a warning like an alarm claxon.

"My mind... it hurts... ithurtshurtshurts..." HIM's face eased out of the covers again, and Bubbles got a clearer look at him.

His eyes were gone.

"T... thank you... for saving me and Boomer... but I've got to go..." Bubbles stuttered, a chill running up her spine. She fought the urge to panic. Boomer needed her. She had to get him away.

"Don't leave!" HIM's male voice roared, and then shrunk instantly into a tiny whisper. "I need... you... take it from me... he tricked... trickedtreattrickedtreat! There's too much light... too much... I... I... saved you..."

HIM had saved her.

Why?

Why?

She saw the door, very faint against the hellish red glow of the walls. Carefully reaching for Boomer, she started to back away towards the exit. HIM looked around furiously, before looking straight at her, with those empty bloodless sockets.

He smiled.

"You're leaving me...? Good child... it'll be done with me soon... You'll be next..." He buried his face in the covers again. "Turn off the lights! Turn them off! Turn them off!!"

Opening the door, she saw only more darkness, and more of that hellish light, in what looked like HIM's living room. But her eyes were more accustomed to it, now, and she could make out the main door leading out. The rest of the living room was as much a mess as anything, and HIM's enchanted television lay cracked on its side, hissing static on the screen.

As she made her escape, Bubbles heard HIM's last words.

"I loved you the most..." There was a mixture of hoarse and grating laughter. "How appropriate... my angel..."

Closing the door behind her, Bubbles looked up at the bright sun, high above, and let it play across her face and seep into her skin. It felt good, and she felt surprisingly revitalized. Wiping leftover tears from her eyes, she lifted Boomer much more easily and headed home at a slow pace.

* * *

"Objectives met-et. Mission completed-ted." Brick/Blossom was the first to land, flying in at a slow pace through the door into Mojo's Observatory. She'd made a quick pass looking for Boomer and Bubbles, and found that the rooftop they had been on was partly eaten away. However, there weren't any bodies, which meant they weren't there when it happened. Brick/Blossom didn't let it show, but she was deeply concerned. She'd miscalculated how long it would take them to find the Living Core in high orbit, and neutralize it. She'd also assumed that the speed and size of the mass of abnormal matter was constant and steady, when it had not been.

Such miscalculations could have proven deadly.

She now saw that she had been overconfident in her abilities and deductions.

"Where are variables Boomer and Bubbles-es?" She looked around, and saw only Mojo, standing in the middle of the room.

"Professor Utonium is nursing them back to health," Mojo explained, lying through his teeth. "He returned with them a short while ago, and a decision was made to confine them to a different Laboratory to study what happened to them and perhaps, through that study, discover..."

"Enough-gh!" Brick/Blossom looked over her shoulder at Butch/Buttercup, who was floating nearby. "It is time to return to our variables-es. You will watch carefully, and mimic our actions-ons."

The red/pink ruff/puff landed, and took a deep breath. Suddenly, she gasped, sharply, and like two halves of the same coin being cut away from each other, separated in a crackle of red and white sparks. Brick stumbled forward, and Blossom fell back, dizzy and weak. Unlike Boomer, however, he was fully clothed and conscious.

"Woah..." He turned around a bit. "Bloss? You all right?"

She took a moment to keep her balance.

"Ow. Ow ow..." She shook her head, and tried to clear the cobwebs. "I've got a splitting headache... and I feel like I just ran a marathon around the solar system..."

Brick let a small grin show. "You'll be fine." He then faced Butch/Buttercup. "Ok, you two. Concentrate on separating, and do what we just did, ok?"

Butch/Buttercup just hovered there. She said nothing.

"What are you waiting for?" Brick frowned. "Separate!"

Slowly, Butch/Buttercup smirked.

"NO," She said, simply, in a steady tenor voice.

"No?!" Brick demanded. "You have to!"

"We will do no such thing..." Butch/Buttercup's smirk grew. "We will be one... forever... We will not give up this... this power, this unity... NEVER. Brother. Never... And you cannot make us!"

"You..." Brick tensed. He checked Blossom's condition - she was weak, and certainly in no condition to do anything about this situation. He felt a little spent himself, for both the same and different reasons, but his physical body hadn't needed to bear the burden of channeling more power than it was normally capable of.

"You will separate, in time, whether you want to or not." Mojo suddenly cut into the conversation. At that, Brick instantly re-evaluated the situation. Things started to make sense: Mojo's recommendation that they pair off with their counterparts, the 'missing' Professor, along with Boomer and Bubbles, and Butch/Buttercup's behavior. It was all so obvious in retrospect, but he had been too distracted and preoccupied to guess it!

They were power mad.

"We will NEVER separate!" Butch/Buttercup roared at Mojo, fists clenched.

"You will." Mojo insisted. "But I can help you..."

"How? Tell us!"

Brick understood as well as any the allure of power. Yet, he had never been what one would call truly power mad. To the red Rowdyruff, power was just a tool, just a means to an end. Butch, however, defined himself by his strength, and Buttercup thought similarly. Then there was the silent bond the two shared, the empathy that Brick had never really understood or identified the roots of.

This was not good.

"You will separate..." Mojo repeated. "But ...BUT ...I can make your merging last longer, I can prolong its effects for the whole day... every day..."

"You... would do this for us?" Butch/Buttercup slowly floated towards Mojo, apparently forgetting about Brick, who stood nearby, his mind working.

There was another angle to this.

Mojo was going to use Butch/Buttercup as a weapon; this much was totally obvious now. He would use them as a pawn, with the promise of keeping their 'unity.' However, Mojo would not risk having such a powerful pawn any longer than was absolutely necessary. He made that mistake with the Rowdyruff Boys, and would not do so again. There had to be some sort of failsafe... Brick looked at Blossom, who was still struggling to stand, and everything came together.

He was aiming to kill them all.

Mojo was telling the truth - Butch and Buttercup would eventually separate, but not for the reasons they were being led to believe. They would separate when Buttercup's body finally gave out from the energy and strain that it was being put under by the merging. They were like a weapon that would eventually destroy itself. No wonder Mojo was seizing this opportunity!

Brick felt a moment of pure hatred and grudging admiration for his 'father.'

"I would! I would do this for you!" Mojo smiled. "But I don't think your brother here wants that! If you want to stay together... you have to stop him..."

"Stop him...?" Butch/Buttercup's head swiveled, and her eyes fell on the Rowdyruff Leader.

"You have to. If you don't, you'll fall apart! You'll be alone! You'll separate..." Mojo drove the nail in the coffin. "...Forever!"

"No... NO!!" Butch/Buttercup surged towards Brick. He had prepared himself, and with every ounce of strength and skill, came in low, slid under the attack, and threw Butch/Buttercup over his shoulder. It was a perfectly executed move, one that used his opponent's momentum and strength against them.

But it was futile.

Butch/Buttercup seemed to vanish, upside down, a heartbeat before a hard blow registered across Brick's jaw. He flew, like a rocket, and struggled to gain control of his flight, and slow his eventual impact into the wall. When the actual impact came, it knocked the wind out of him. He fell to his knees, and it felt like he'd broken a rib or two.

"You... fools!" He stood, painfully. "It's a trick! You'll die if you don't separate!"

Butch/Buttercup's face became a cruel grimace.

"You LIE!" She roared. "The union is PERFECT!"

Brick tried to block the blow that came, but it was too fast, and far too strong. It blew through his defenses like they weren't even there.

"The union is PARADISE!" He heard coupled with another blow to the sternum that had him coughing blood. He tried a counterattack, tried to make an opening to escape, but his strongest blows had no effect on Butch/Buttercup.

"You will not deny us our dreams... our lovely beautiful power..."

Brick felt hands on his neck, and weightlessness as he was lifted into the air.

"Finish him!" Mojo yelled. "Quickly! Then you'll be together forever!"

"Brick!" Another voice yelled, a mixture of pain and anger. "Buttercup! Butch! Stop! For God's sake, stop! You're killing him!"

"You too, would deny us?" Butch/Buttercup looked down, calmly, as Blossom crashed into her side, punching and kicking and scratching like a wild animal. She was in terrible pain, tapping into her power, but her inner fire kept her going.

With an almost casual ease, Butch/Buttercup reached out and took her sister by the neck with her free hand. Blossom's mouth moved, as she fought for air, and her hands tried, in vain, to pry loose the ever-increasing pressure on her neck that threatened to pop her head off like a clipped flower.

"Let... go of her..." Brick's eyes snapped open, and narrowed on Butch/Buttercup's other wrist. An intense beam, focused like a laser, cut into the ruff/puff's arm. Surprised by the actual pain that the attack had caused, if not damage, Butch/Buttercup's grip slackened, and Blossom fell back to the ground.

"You would fight us?" Butch/Buttercup's grip on Brick's neck doubled. "We will not be separated! Not by you! NOT BY ANYONE!!"

"It's... a trick..." Brick's voice was gone after that.

"LIAR! You always lie...! Always! ALWAYS! But never again! NEVER, do you hear us!?"

"Buttercup!" "Butch!" Two different voices yelled, exhausted but firm, and above all, afraid and concerned. The last of the Rowdyruff/Powerpuff amalgams turned and saw the bearers of the voices: Bubbles and Boomer, the latter wearing what looked like toga made from someone's bed sheets and tied together in a hurry.

"You two?" Butch/Buttercup snarled.

"Brick... he's telling the truth..." Bubbles said, and pointed at Blossom. "Look at Blossom! Look at me! I could barely get here on my own..."

"Butch! Look what you're doing!" Boomer yelled. "Look at yourself, man!"

"There is no Butch! There is no Buttercup!" She hissed. "There is only WE! There is only the perfect power that is us! You would trick..."

"This isn't a trick!" Bubbles cried. "Buttercup... I've never lied to you... Please, just think about what you're doing..."

"We... we will not be..." Butch/Buttercup turned from their blond siblings, to the still Rowdyruff Leader in their grip. With a startled gasp, she let go of him, and stepped back. Brick's body hit the ground with a dull, lifeless thump.

"We... we..." She looked down at her hands, saw the splotches of blood: Brick's blood. Her voice wavered. "What have we... what have I done...?"

With horrible venom, she turned to Mojo, who had been watching the followings with growing trepidation. Almost without thinking, he reached for the laser rifle slung at his side.

"You... this is all your fault...!"

"Wait! No!" Mojo, beyond desperate, leveled the gun. "Come no closer...!"

With a feral howl of anger, and in the blink of an eye, Butch/Buttercup's fist was buried into his chest. He hung there, impaled on her arm, silent. Slowly, Butch/Buttercup pulled back, and he slid off and to the ground, in a pool of thick red blood. His mouth parted, just enough to show teeth, but he said nothing. Mojo Jojo blinked, twice, and then his eyes never opened again.

Blood on her hands, Butch/Buttercup fell to her knees and cried. A second later, with a crack of thunder, she fell apart, into Butch and Buttercup. The two children were still sobbing, but Buttercup's breathing was irregular and punctuated by choked and muffled sounds. Only a few yards away, and yet at the same time, in an altogether different world, Blossom slowly got back to her feet.

As if on baby legs, Blossom walked unsteadily towards her fallen counterpart.

He looked... so still.

"Brick..." She felt her legs give out again, and collapsed onto him. Gently, she took hold of his shirt, and shook him. Tears were streaking down her face, splashing onto his. "Brick... Wake up... wake up..."

His eyes moved, just slightly, and focused on her.

She noticed.

"Brick... say something... say something to me... Please! Say something! Please!!"

His lips moved, very gently, and she leaned in closer.

"Blossom... Non dolet," He whispered, and closed his eyes, "Non omnia moriar..."

Latin?

"Brick... you'll be ok... its over..." She searched his face for any sign of understanding, and sort of response, but there was nothing. Hand trembling, heart pounding, she felt for a pulse, and drew back, afraid, when she found none.

"B... Brick...?" Boomer leaned over. Blossom hadn't even noticed that he was there. Gulping, unsure, Boomer looked at her.

"Red... Red... is...?"

"Ca... Call an ambulance..." She answered, voice hoarse. When he didn't move, she turned on him, angry. "Call a Goddamn ambulance! NOW!"

Boomer nodded, wiped his face, and ran.

Looking down at him, splashed with blood and tears, Blossom screwed her eyes shut. She willed him to wake up. She willed him to live. The tears of the people of Townsville had revived her... why weren't her own enough to do the same to him? Opening her eyes, she saw that his red cap had fallen off, leaving his somewhat pale, neglected orange hair to spill out over the side of his face.

He looked so vulnerable, now: like a child. But he wasn't a child, was he? He had seemed immortal. Untouchable. A force of nature... Always there with a plan, always there with a remark, always there to correct and argue with her, always there to lead the way. For the last month, in many ways, he had gone from bitter enemy to guiding light. He had seen them through the most difficult times and battles of their short lives.

But in the end, he was mortal. He was just a child. And he had used his last ounce of power to save her, of all people - he had saved the very person who once killed him. No! Her mind refused to believe it: NO! She denied it: He couldn't be dead! Sobbing uncontrollably, hands clenched in the fabric of his red and black shirt, Blossom couldn't help but wonder and fear.

What were they to do now?

( To be continued... in 'Gauntlet: Diaspora' )


End file.
